


A Change In Priorities

by WestOrEast



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: F/F, Girl Penis, Spanking, Superheroes, handjob
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 17:29:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 52,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20067835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WestOrEast/pseuds/WestOrEast
Summary: Taylor is going to be a hero. And no one and nothing is going to change that. Not Lightshaft, no matter how many sexually-laden hints the villain gives as she teases Taylor. And no matter what other people say.Public updates on the first of every month.





	1. Chapter 1

**A Change in Priorities Ch. 1**

  
There was something I hadn’t realized about being a hero. How _hard_ it was to find any crime. In a city like Brockton Bay, there should have a robbery or a mugging every five seconds. But this was my second night out, I had been out looking around for an hour and a half, and I hadn’t seen _anything_.  
  
And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay out. Mom was out late with some college conference, but she was going to be home eventually. And it was a _lot_ easier to sneak into an empty house then one with my mom staying up late, reading.  
  
Even if I didn’t need to use any of the windows or doors on the ground floor to do so. I sighed and looked down at my watch. Another twenty minutes, and it was time for me to head home. And then I should start thinking about going to other parts of the city to patrol, because this place was _dead_.  
  
Just as I thought that, I heard a shattering crash a few blocks away. I perked up and started running towards it, my hand fumbling at my belt to draw the baton I had there. This could be it. This could be the start of my hero career. Or it could be someone who had knocked a clay pot off of a third story balcony.  
  
I rounded the corner and looked up and down the dark, dead street for what had caused the noise. There were two rows of strip malls on either side of the street, their parking lots empty. And then I saw a light, shining through the windows of a… I glanced up at the sign above it. The First Church of Christ is Love. And since there was nothing else happening, I started towards it, feeling the shadows around me pulsing a bit as my heart started to beat faster inside of my chest.  
  
I could see what had caused the crash. There was a chair outside a broken window, laying amid shards of glass. I looked in, seeing an office, crammed with bookshelves and a desk. The light seemed to be coming in from deeper inside the church.  
  
I looked around. The street was dead, the only people several streets away, not looking at me or the church. If anything was going to happen, it was going to be because of me.  
  
Underneath the ski mask I wore as a, well, mask, I set my jaw as firmly as I could. This was it. I was going to find out what was happening and show people that I could be a hero.  
  
I carefully stepped inside, doing my best not to touch any of the broken glass. I winced as my heavy boots made crunching sounds, grinding the glass into smaller fragments. Hopefully whoever was inside with the flashlight couldn’t hear me.  
  
Moving as quietly as I could, I stepped through the doorway of the office. There, across the hall there was a pair of closed doors, with enough light coming through to show that it was a larger space. The… church’s didn’t call it an auditorium, but I had no idea what the proper word was.  
  
The swirling darkness around me was getting larger and larger, standing out a good two, three inches form my body. _Good_. I wanted as much of it out there as I could, even if it did make me look kind of scary, with roiling clouds of black puffed out from my body.  
  
I nudged one of the doors open and stepped through, looking at the source of the light. I squinted at it, and then my jaw dropped. And then I smiled. My very first supervillain.  
  
She was standing on a platform at the front of the auditorium, facing away from me. She was wearing a white outfit with blue edging, with robes that went down to her ankles and a hood up over her head. The clothing was glowing, a soft light that still illuminated the room. There was an antique bow across her back, and she held a can of paint in one hand and a dripping red brush in the other. She was spelling something out on the wall, but I couldn’t tell what it was, it was so incomplete. _God Loves: S_-something.  
  
And I knew who it was. Lightshaft, one of Brockton Bay’s more minor supervillains. I had no idea what she was doing here or why, but I didn’t care. She was a villain, I was a hero, it was that simple.  
  
“Alright, _stop_,” I said, putting as much steel into my voice as I could. “You’re under arrest.”  
  
I was walking towards her as fast as I could, trying to keep my breathing even. If she wanted a fight, I was going to give her the best fight I could.  
  
“And who are you?” She asked, turning around and putting her hands on her hips. I couldn’t see her face behind the cloth mask and hood she wore, but I still gritted my teeth at the amused note in her voice. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” There was a weird harmonic, buzzing quality to her voice that was nice to listen to, but also did a good job of disguising her real voice.  
  
I hadn’t been able to come up with a good hero name yet, so I just ignored the first question. Instead, I pointed my baton at her, wisps of darkness creeping up along it before evaporating.  
  
“I _said_, you’re under arrest,” I repeated, glaring at her through the eyeholes in my mask.  
  
“Oh dear,” Lightshaft said, shaking her head back and forth. “You don’t _have_ a name yet, do you?” I could feel her eyes roaming over my costume, the sturdy, dark clothes I had bought with my allowance. “And you don’t have a costume, either. Is this your very first night out?”  
  
I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t going to take this from some villainess, especially one who was old enough to be my mom and had never done anything more than some petty stunts. I started striding towards her, lifting my baton.  
  
“Last chance,” I barked, trying to remember what I had seen in movies. “Down on your knees and put your hands behind your head!”  
  
“I’ve been threatened by heroes far more intimidating than you, my dear,” Lightshaft said, dropping her can and brush and drawing her bow from her back. “If you think you’ve got what it takes to make me surrender, come and _show me_.”  
  
I scowled at her behind my mask, my lips pressing against the black fabric of the mask. I pumped out as many shadows as I could, and then I launched myself forward, spending all of them as I flashed across the last half of the room. I could feel the darkness roiling out behind me, wisping away into nothing as I drew the baton back.  
  
Lightshaft jumped to the side, off the stage and down onto the floor. I couldn’t change course, moving like this, but at least I could stop myself from going the complete distance. I came to a halt right at the edge of the stage, turning to glare at her. I was already pumping out all the shadows I could.  
  
This was it. I was in my first cape fight, and somehow, it still didn’t seem that real. I felt like I could _see_ the smirk underneath Lightshaft’s mask, like I was just some joke to her. I’d show her. There was going to be at least one person besides Mom who treated me seriously.  
  
I jumped towards her, my baton raised up, boots clunking against the platform. She backed up a bit, lifting her bow. Even as I saw the arrow, all glowing white light, start to form, I felt a sense of vindication. I’d made her back up, even if-  
  
I dodged, falling down into a half-crouch, hearing the whine of the arrow as it flew past me. I was still moving towards Lightshaft, my heart pounding in my chest, a roar in my ears, that I could even tell if I was making or if it was just the blood pounding in my ears.  
  
I used up my shadows again, spending them as I flicked towards Lightshaft. I was so close, I could use the last of them to enhance the blow, catch her right in the gut!  
  
My shadows failed halfway. Too soon, it was too soon. My arm was already moving on instinct, lashing forward, the last of my darkness enhancing the blow. Lightshaft didn’t even bother to dodge as the tip flew past her, a foot and a half at _least_ too short.  
  
“So, that darkness of yours doesn’t like the light, huh?” Lightshaft said, her tone half curious and half amused. “That is _quite_ the bad matchup for your first fight, I’m afraid.”  
  
Even as she was talking, I was charging forward. It wasn’t far, she was too busy talking, I just-  
  
All the breath was driven out of me at once as the arrow hit me right in the gut. I flopped backwards, landing on my ass. _Shit_, that hurt.  
  
But even now I could tell it didn’t hurt as much as it should have. Not like getting hit by an arrow should have. I stared down at the glowing shaft, watching in shock as it shimmered and vanished. And underneath, there was nothing but my black clothing. I gingerly patted at it, and felt nothing but cloth underneath my fingers.  
  
I realized I had spent too long not believing that I wasn’t dead. I looked up just as a glowing, booted foot pushed down on my shoulder, driving me down to the floor. I looked up at Lightshaft’s mask, barely able to see the glint of her eyes above the lighted material.  
  
I tried to summon my shadows, but nothing came. A few faint wisps, more grey than black wafted off of me, but they writhed and burned without ever getting dark enough that even a housefly could hide inside of them.  
  
“Kid,” Lightshaft said, shaking her hooded head back and forth. “I’ve been doing this for years. Did you _really_ think you’d get me on your very first night out?” Her slightly humming voice was dripping with amusement.  
  
I snarled up at her, trying to wiggle away. But without my shadows, I was just Taylor Hebert, a skinny, weak teenage girl in street clothes. I wasn’t even able to stop her as Lightshaft reached down and tossed my baton away, sending it clattering off a wall in the darkness.  
  
“I’ll be back,” I said, grabbing her boot and trying to pull it off of me. But she just leaned down on my shoulder a bit more and I was forced to give up. I had a Swiss army knife in a belt on my back, but there was no way I could reach it like this. “You’ll see. I’ll arrest you.”  
“Big dreams. That’s a good sign,” Lightshaft nodded. “But there _are_ consequences for losing a fight,” she continued, putting her bow on her back. “You’d arrest me if you won, and _I_,” she stepped off of me. I rose maybe half a foot before she grabbed me, and before I knew what was happening, hauled me over to the stand at the front of the church, “am going to have to punish you.”  
  
“Let go of me!” I said, twisting around. But she had a firm grip on my clothes, and I was still feeling off from not having my shadows around me.  
  
Before I could do anything useful, she was sitting down on the stand, and I was bent over her lap. I blinked, and tried to stand up. But a deceptively strong hand was pressed down on the small of my back, keeping me in place. I rocked from side to side, but, for a woman only a bit taller than I was, she was _strong_.  
  
“I will,” Lightshaft said. “In a bit. But _first_, you need to learn what can happen to you.”  
  
I kept on trying to wiggle free, but Lightshaft grabbed my arms and held them behind me, using one hand to hold onto both of my wrists. I was _stuck_. I kept on trying to think of a way to get out of this, and nothing was coming to me.  
  
Then she hit me in the ass. I squealed, my eyes going wide underneath my ski hood. That hadn’t been a punch, that had been a slap! She was spanking my ass! What the hell?  
  
“What the hell?” I followed up. “What are you doing, you-!”  
  
Lightshaft spanked my butt again. She was _strong_. I could feel the slap jarring my entire body, driving me down onto her lap. I coughed, my words sputtering off into nothing.  
  
“You’re new at this, and you need to understand how dangerous cape fights can be,” Lightshaft said, her voice level but with a bit of tension running through it.  
  
She spanked me again, my jeans not seeming to do _anything_ to stop the blow. I moaned, twitching from side to side, trying to get off. But with how firmly she was holding onto me, that just wasn’t happening.  
  
The heat from the unending slaps was starting to spread throughout my body. It went up and down my spine, but mostly it seemed to be building in my crotch, a dull, hot ache right at the bottom of my torso. I gasped, shaking my head from side to side, trying to fight off the tears, and mostly succeeding.  
  
“You won’t get away with this,” I said weakly. “I don’t know how, but-!”  
  
I just couldn’t talk for long. Every time Lightshaft spanked me, it shattered my words into a million parts. I gasped, feeling the sensations moving through me. I had _never_ felt like this before. Not even when Sophia got in a few kicks to my stomach or anything. There was this, this feeling inside, almost like it wasn’t even pain. Whatever it was, I kept on telling myself I didn’t want to feel any more of it.  
  
I craned my head around to glare up at her, blinking back the tears. It was impossible to make out her expression, hidden behind the glowing light and her mask. All I could really see was her lifting her hand up once more, and bringing it down on my butt.  
  
I moaned, my voice cracking in the middle. It hurt. It seriously hurt, way more than the blunt arrow to the gut had. And yet, there was still something… I couldn’t concentrate on that now. All I could worry about was how much more I was going to get spanked, and if I could stop myself from squealing.  
  
I could feel something pressing into my stomach. It was hard, but too big across. I had _no_ idea what it was. What could Lightshaft even have down there that-!  
  
My face went beet red as I realized what I was feeling. Lightshaft was enjoying this just as much as I was disliking it. Ew, ew, ew. She better not try to _do_ anything with that, it was so disgusting even to think about.  
  
Lightshaft paused. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t care. I was too busy twitching on her lap, shoulders heaving.  
  
“Well, you may not have beat me,” Lightshaft said, running her hand over my rear, “but you did manage to stop me.”  
  
What? I blinked, not having the slightest clue what she was talking about. Then Lightshaft rolled me off of her, putting me on the floor. I hissed, my butt hurting as it pressed against the ground. I looked up at her as she started for the side exit.  
  
“The cops will be here in two minutes or so,” Lightshaft said over her shoulder. “Your choice if you want to meet them or not. Probably shouldn’t, with your look, no name for yourself and no nasty criminal to hand over.”  
  
The police? I climbed to my feet, my legs feeling _really_ weak underneath me. Maybe, maybe I could still arrest her. My shadows were starting to form as she got farther away from me.  
  
“Oh, by the way,” Lightshaft said, pausing at the door. “If you don’t have a cape name the next time we meet, I’ll choose one for you.” She paused for a second. “And you will _not_ like it.”  
  
With that, she slipped out the side door. I could see the glow that surrounded her retreating. And I could hear the distant wail of sirens.  
  
Well, _fuck_. I stared at the raised stage. Lightshaft had left some stuff behind. The paint brush and can, the half-finished message on the front wall. That was it. That was my _big_ debut, stopping some vandalism.  
  
I wasn’t going to face the cops like this. Not as a failure. I rubbed my ass, wincing. Not as a _hurting_ failure, especially. I started for the same exit Lightshaft had used, wincing as I hobbled. The heat wasn’t dying down inside of me.  
  
Especially the heat _inside_ of me. That was even more distracting than the pain in my ass. I shivered as I thought about that heat. It wasn’t bad, I didn’t think, but it was pretty distracting.  
  
Okay, I couldn’t walk fast enough. Instead, I called on my shadows. In an instant, I was outside the door, and my face was almost pressed against the wall on the far side of the hallway. At the front of the church, I could hear some noise. Turning the other way, I started moving towards the rear, walking for a few seconds before using my shadows to dash across the intervening space.  
  
This hadn’t been a good night, I thought as I slipped out the rear door. Not at all. But it wasn’t going to be the end.  
  
Sooner or later, I was going to get Lightshaft. And then she’d see what kind of hero I could be.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Change in Priorities Chapter Two**

  
I was starting to ache by the time I saw my house. It wasn’t just my ass. It wasn’t even _mostly_ my ass. It was my legs and my stomach and my arms and my back and pretty much all over. Getting in a fight _hurt_.  
  
Hurt in more ways than one. How as I going to beat Lightshaft? She didn’t have _that_ impressive of a power, and if my shadows already interfered with her lights, then there _had_ to be a way to bring her down. But what?  
  
Ugh, I could do some research online tomorrow. Right now, a tablet of aspirin and bed sounded really, _really_ nice.  
  
And getting caught by Mom sneaking into the house sounded a whole lot less nice. But… I held my breath as I crept up the sidewalk. _Yes_, the driveway was still empty. Mom wasn’t back home yet. I was in the clear.  
  
I sighed in relief as I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, automatically hopping over the broken front step. Maybe if I had beaten Lightshaft, I could tell Mom that I was a superhero. That I could take care of myself, that I was doing good. But after a defeat like this? Even ignoring that I had been bent over her lap and spanked liked a kid, there was no way that I could reassure Mom.  
  
Later, I’d do it later. For now, I pulled the ski mask out of my pocket and looked down at it. I wasn’t sure if my second night and my first defeat had been better than my first night out with nothing happening. But, I clenched my hand into a fist, crumpling up the mask, my third night out would _certainly_ be better. I’d make it be better.  
  
I froze as I heard a car pull into the driveway and a pair of headlamps sweep across the living room. Mom was back. I _dashed_ towards the stairs, pounding up them with my boots and wincing at how loud they were. Then it was into my room and shutting the door as quietly and quickly as I could.  
  
I sat down on my bed, fingers fumbling at the laces on my boots. Mom always went in through the rear door, so I had just enough time to get out of my costume. I shoved my boots into my closet, my costume underneath my mattress and slid into the oversized t-shirt I slept in. Downstairs, I could hear the sounds of Mom moving around in the kitchen.  
  
Crap, had I been quiet enough? I didn’t know. And I wanted to talk to Mom. Heck, I _wanted_ to talk about how my first fight as a superhero had been a failure. Luckily, there were other things I could talk about with her instead.  
  
I went back down the stairs, yawning as I did so. I turned the corner into the kitchen, and saw Mom halfway through emptying her briefcase. She looked up at me and smiled.  
  
“Hi, Taylor,” she said quietly, giving me a smile. “Did I wake you?”  
  
Mom looked a _lot_ like me. Older, obviously, by twenty some years, but beyond that, we had similar hair and a similar face and a similar build. Tall, skinny, not too pretty, with a pretty expressive face.  
  
“I was barely sleeping,” I said, sitting down at the kitchen table, careful to keep my weight on my arms and thighs, and off my sore butt. I glanced at the reports she was stacking on the table. “How was college?”  
  
“The same as it ever was,” Mom said with a sigh. “A lot of work, a lot of boredom.” Her lips quirked upward in a smile. “But at least I get to come home to you.”  
  
I smiled at that. It wasn’t a _huge_ smile, though. Dad’s absence was something we tried to skirt around and not discuss. Even after a year and a half, it still hurt to think that he was dead.  
  
“It was nice of you to come down and see me,” Mom said, “but shouldn’t you be going to bed? You have school tomorrow.”  
  
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, standing up with a sigh. “But you should go to bed soon, too.”  
  
“Who’s the parent here?” Mom asked, her lips flashing upward in a quick smile. “Don’t you worry about me, Taylor.” She put her briefcase on top of the reports she had laid out. “I’ll be in bed by thirty minutes.”  
  
I hesitated, still looking at her. It was nice to see Mom. But could I really just leave her in the dark about me being a superhero?  
  
“Mom?” I said.  
  
“Yes, Taylor?”  
  
I opened my mouth and closed it again.  
  
“I love you, Mom.”  
  
“I love you, too, Taylor,” she said, reaching across the table and patting my hand. She smiled again and I smiled back.  
  
I turned back towards the stairs, scowling. So much for my big reveal. Well, I could do it later. Once I’d arrested Lightshaft. And right now, I just needed to go to bed. And go to sleep on my front, because my rear was still a bit tender.

*******

The next morning, I was sitting in front of one of Winslow’s computers. There were a couple of reasons I liked computer class, and that Mrs. Knott didn’t care what we did once we were done with our assignments was one of them. So there was nothing stopping me from looking online to find out about Lightshaft.  
  
Another reason that I liked computer class was that my bullies couldn’t get to me here. Mrs. Knott was _very_ strict about not talking, so if I made sure that just random students were on either side of me, there was nothing that could happen to me. I could just focus on my work and, now, focus on my research.  
  
There was more about Lightshaft than I had expected. Mostly in tiny political blogs, either ranting against her or praising her. I skimmed over the blogs for anything useful and then went to Parahumans Online, which was _the_ site for American capes.  
  
That was more useful, since there was more actual information instead of editorializing. I looked over what people thought her powers were, and pretty much agreed with them. Could make arrows of hard light that could cut or bruise on demand, and her robe probably worked as armor. Either that, or she herself was tough.  
  
I went back up the page to look at her history. Appeared a year and a half ago, and was the only cape in her group. Though calling it a group was being generous. One of the posters, who’s signature said they were a PRT trooper, was insistent that the three or four people who worked for her were drivers and lookouts, and that they had never once gotten involved in a fight.  
  
Lightshaft herself wasn’t much of a fighter either, it seemed. Mostly she seemed to do publicity stunts, like what I had caught her at last night. I looked over the list of stuff she had done and a memory clicked. _That_ was what I knew her from. About eleven months ago, she had managed to disrupt some event the state attorney general had been at, forcing the sound techs to give her air time to accuse the A.G. of being a rapist scumbag, and listing off names and times.  
  
It had made the news for a few days, and been revisited a few months later when the attorney general had resigned over it. Mom had been vindictively satisfied about that. I nodded, glad that I had at least figured out where I knew Lightshaft from.  
  
The rest of her history was pretty much the same. Hitting corporations and officials and occasionally scraping with the Empire 88. I got the impression that if she didn’t go against the government so often she would be considered a hero. I glanced at the line talking about how she had stolen five thousand dollars in cash from the League of American Pride. Okay, maybe she needed to change a few other things as well to be a proper hero.  
  
And maybe a defeat by me would make her rethink things in jail. I nodded and smiled to myself, closing the window. Class was almost done, and so was the school day. Just one more period, and I could…  
  
Normally, I’d go home, and practice my powers and build my endurance. But what Lightshaft had said had struck me. I _needed_ to come up with a superhero name.  
  
But what? Black, shadowy powers weren’t exactly great and fun to watch. I didn’t really care if someone else had taken a good name. What were they going to do? Fly out from L.A. or something and beat me up for calling myself Specter?  
  
Hmmm. Was Specter a good name? But I wasn’t really a ghost. Man, this was the same problem I had had the _first_ few times I had tried to come up with a cape name. And it wasn’t as if there was anybody I could ask for advice, either.  
  
Later. I shook my head, dismissing the thoughts. Cape stuff should stay at home, with Mom, who respected my privacy. Not here. Not with Emma and her coterie of stone-cold bitches.  
  
And speak of the devil, the bell rang, singling the end of class. One more class to go to, and then school would be _over_. But it was one more class with Emma, and some of the harpies who joined in to get in her good graces.  
  
I joined the crowd of students shambling out of the computer classroom. There was a buzz of conversation as everyone else started working the tongues that had been stilled in Ms. Knot’s class. I wasn’t one of them, because there wasn’t really anyone here that I wanted to talk to. Or that I wanted to talk to me.  
  
The crowd of students spread out and mingled with other classes as we stepped into the hallway. I kept on looking around me, trying to see if Emma or Madison or any of the other bitches were sneaking up on me. I didn’t see any of them, just a few of the hanger-ons, who wouldn’t do a thing if Emma wasn’t there to see them do it.  
  
Then I rounded the corner and saw where everyone else had gone to. A ring of people had formed in the center of the hallway, maybe eight or nine students yelling and jeering. More and more were piling up on either side, not able to get past the fight.  
  
And it was a real fight. I saw Sophia Hess, the most brutal of my bullies, going at it with some skinhead bitch. In the crowd behind her, I saw Emma and Madison and some of the others, cheering her on, urging her to smash the neo-Nazi. The skinhead was supported by her own group of thugs, half of them cheering her on, and the other insulting Sophia for being black.  
  
I didn’t care who won, and I didn’t want to stick around. Sophia and the skinhead could rip each other’s throats out for all I cared. All that really mattered was that they were blocking the route to my next class. I went back to try another way. And as I did so, a cheering thought came to me.  
  
Maybe all three of them (and the Empire 88 thugs) would get in enough trouble they wouldn’t be in class. And the sad thing was that it was enough to brighten my day, thinking about.  
  
God, summer couldn’t come fast enough. Just a few more weeks, and I would be out of this stinking place for the next two and half months. Maybe Emma would get bored. Maybe she’d die. Maybe _something_, anything would happen. And even if it didn’t, at least her and her bitch friends wouldn’t be able to do anything to me.  
  
I was really looking forward to this summer.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Change In Priorities Chapter Three**

  
I was tossing my baton from hand to hand as I walked down the street. I probably shouldn’t be in this part of town, since there weren’t any businesses open at this time of night that a girl my age was supposed to be in. But this neighborhood had a sky-high crime rate, even for Brockton Bay. So I was going to do my part to help bring it down a little.  
  
I sighed as, a block ahead of me, a woman and a man crossed the street to go down the other sidewalk. Okay, I _really_ needed some way to show that I was a hero. That was the third time this had happened tonight, and I knew it was because I looked like a mugger, with the ski mask pulled down around my face and the dark clothes and everything.  
  
I turned down an alley, my cheeks burning underneath my mask. And then my jaw dropped. Halfway down the alley, kind of hidden behind a dumpster, there was a woman, her face turned to look at me. She was pinned to the alley wall by a man who was also wearing a ski mask pulled down over his face.  
  
I started towards the two of them, flicking my baton out. This wasn’t a supervillain, but I didn’t care. Someone was in trouble (and I _really_ hoped this wasn’t a streetwalker and a john who liked his anonymity) and I was going to save her.  
  
“Hey, you!” I barked out, putting as much intimidation into my voice as I could. “What are you doing?”  
  
“What the-? Oh, shit!”  
  
The man stumbled away from the woman, dollar bills and coins falling to the ground. He looked back and forth, at me, at the woman, down the other end of the alley. Then he took off running. Wow, and I hadn’t even started generating my shadows or anything to show I was a cape.  
  
I got to where the woman was. She was middle-aged, Asian, and almost as skinny as I was. She looked at me, tears trickling down her face.  
  
“Not another one,” she moaned. “Why is this happening?”  
  
My eyes got wide underneath my ski mask. Not _again_. I collapsed the baton and put it back in it’s spot on my belt. I held my hands up, kneeling down to pick up her purse.  
  
“No, no, I’m not a crook,” I said, feeling my cheeks burn, “I’m a hero, okay? Here’s your purse.”  
  
“Really?” She asked, looking at me, her shoulders still trembling. “You’re…” I nodded quickly, my head bobbing up and down like a toy. “Oh.” She wiped her eyes with the corner of her sleeve. “Ha. Ah ha ha ha.”  
  
She turned to the side and leaned on the dumpster, her laughter sounding pretty shrill. I hesitated, not sure what I should be doing. Finally, I reached over and patted her on the shoulder. After a few minutes, she shook her head and turned to look at me more properly.  
  
“Thank you for coming by,” she said, opening up her purse and taking out a card. “I’m Rei Tendo, a lawyer for an Asian advocacy firm. If a cop ever makes the same mistake I did, give me a call.”  
  
“Ah, well,” I said, chuckling a tad nervously, “I’m actually a superhero, so I don’t think I’m going to need something like that.” I still took the card.  
  
“Really?” Ms. Tendo said, looking me up and down. “Well, I’m glad to have you looking out for us.” A quick smile flashed across her face. “Especially me.” She held out her hand and I awkwardly took it. “Thank you again for intervening. He wouldn’t have gotten much,” she looked down at the contents of her purse, strewn across two or three square feet of alley, “but that might have just made him mad. It’s a good thing you stepped in when you did.”  
  
“Um, well,” I said lamely, not really accustomed to people praising me, “always there in the nick of time, right?” God, that was such a lame quote from such a lame show. But it got me another quick smile.  
  
“Well, then, Miss,” Ms. Tendo said, kneeling down to reassemble her purse. I knelt down to help her. “If there’s ever a way I repay the favor, just let me know.”  
  
“Of course, of course,” I said, a smile starting to form as the two of us stood up. I patted Ms. Tendo on the shoulders and walked her to the mouth of the alley. “Take care getting home, okay?”  
  
“And you take care out there as well,” she replied, looking me over. “It’s good to see such a brave young lady, and I’d hate for something to happen to you.”  
  
She turned and left, her heels clacking on the concrete sidewalk. I watched her go for a few minutes, the smile fully blossoming on my face.  
  
I went down the alley, a wide, wide smile pasted on my face I had _done_ it. I was a superhero now. Sure, there hadn’t been a fight, not even against some unpowered mugger. But I had _saved_ people. That was the important thing. _That_ made me a superhero, just like anybody was supposed to be once they had powers.  
  
Tonight seemed like it was the best night of my life. Nothing was going to bring me down.

*******

I was still riding high a good forty-five minutes later, tapping my fingers against my thigh as I came out of an alleyway into an empty square. I looked around, seeing a whole lot of nothing on three sides of me and the occasional flash of cars going by on the last side that opened onto a street.  
  
So there wasn’t anything here, just the loading lots for some businesses. So what? I had still done it. Even if I didn’t stop a single other crime tonight, I knew I had still helped people out. And that was worth a _ton_.  
  
Even as I thought that, I heard a long, rolling clang from inside one of the buildings, like someone had dropped metal onto concrete. And there weren’t any lights on.  
  
Well, it seemed I was going to do _two_ good deeds tonight. I started wrapping myself in shadows, feeling the dark smoke come boiling off of me, a kind of chilly feeling on my skin. I walked as quietly towards the door to the building as I could.  
  
It was unlocked, and swung open at a touch. I slipped inside, nudging it closed behind me. It was a good thing that the courtyard had been so dark, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to see inside the dark factory.  
  
That was what I thought, at least. Then I looked around at the red-hued lights playing across the inside of the machine shop. There was a bunch of industrial equipment inside, but I could still see two people. They were both wearing dark clothing with ski masks pulled over their heads.  
  
My jaw dropped, and then came back up in a _very_ happy smile as I saw the third. Lightshaft, coming around some press or something, her glowing, hooded robes making her real easy to identify. Oh _fuck_ yes. This was going to be so, so sweet. This really was my night to become a hero, wasn’t it? My first rescue and my first arrest.  
  
I licked my dry lips and started towards her. My shadow dash didn’t make a single sound, so I used that instead of walking. Dash forward, duck behind some machinery, wait for my shadows to recharge, and repeat. I was almost there when one of the other people walked around the corner and saw me.  
  
“Jose? What are-!” Her head snapped around to where her friend was. “Oh shit!”  
  
I jumped forward, using my shadows to give myself a bit of an extra boost. I caught her right in the stomach. That didn’t feel _great_ for me, but it sent her down on her butt, gasping for air. I scrambled to my feet, looking at the center of the room.  
  
The other guy, Jose, and Lightshaft were both looking at me. Jose just looked shocked, a bundle of papers in his arms that was slowly shedding loose pages, while Lightshaft already had her bow unholstered, though still pointing at the floor. I knew which one of these was actually the threat.  
  
“You again,” Lightshaft said, her voice humming, enough that I didn’t have a hope of discerning her actual voice. It was a pleasant effect, though. “You really are quite persistent.”  
  
That called for some kind of witty one-liner. And when I thought of it in a few days, I was going to wish I had someone to share it with. Instead, I just circled around the end of the aisle, keeping enough machinery between me and that bow to duck down quick.  
  
“Hey,” Lightshaft said over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off of me. “As soon as the heroine,” it felt far too nice to listen to that, even if it was from a villain, “gets far enough away, grab her and get out of here.”  
  
“I’m fine,” the woman said, coughing as she got to her knees. “Just gotta catch my breath.”  
  
_Shit_. I should have handcuffed her or something. I hoped I’d get the chance to learn from that. I tried to keep both her and Lightshaft in sight. Unless Jose pulled out a gun or something, he was _way_ too far away to jump me.  
  
“Both of you, get,” Lightshaft said, jerking her head towards the door I had come through. “We’ve got what we needed. I’ll wrap this up and meet you two later.”  
  
“And what is it you need?” I asked, as Jose started edging around the perimeter of the building and the woman hobbled-ran for the exit.  
  
“Some proof of how our dear friends in the corporate world enhance their salaries,” Lightshaft said, a gleaming arrow appearing in her bow. “And we’re not even stealing!” She added in a smug, happy tone that set my teeth on edge. “Some journalist is going to be getting a feather in their cap when we give them the copies.”  
  
I figured I was close enough. I spent a portion of my shadows, leaping over the machinery, my boot swinging up to kick her.  
  
Lightshaft jumped back, but she hit the table behind her too quickly. I still missed, but at least I heard her grunt as she bounced off the table. She was _real_ close now, and I spent the other portion of my shadows, just needing to close the gap faster than I could have normally.  
  
Lightshaft lashed out with her bow, catching me on the arm with the upper arm. I couldn’t tell what had happened to the arrow. I grunted as my arm was driven down, the baton slipping from my grip.  
  
I kept on moving, not willing to give up just because I had lost my weapon. I surged towards her, feet kicking against the concrete and spread my arms out wide, trying to cut off her escape.  
  
Lightshaft didn’t dodge to the side. Instead, she moved towards me, slamming into me. We both went to the floor, and I tried to grapple at her. But her robe was so _slick_, it was hard to get a proper grip on it. That I was moving just on instinct didn’t help matters.  
  
I landed on the floor, Lightshaft on top of me. I blinked, her glowing hood pressed right up against the eyeholes in my mask. I grabbed at her, and felt her shoulders, underneath the robe. I started to roll over, and end up on top of _her_.  
  
Then she pulled herself up. I tugged on her robe, and at least got the satisfaction of seeing it get tugged upwards and over her face. But even if she was blinded, she was still upright and I was still on the ground.  
  
Something that was brought home to me as she kicked me in the leg, her foot scraping up my shin. I growled and pulled myself upward, using the machinery for leverage.  
  
And it still wasn’t fast enough. I launched myself at her as soon as I was level with her waist. But she managed to sidestep and ended up behind me. I felt her grab at my shoulder and at my arm, and then she bull-rushed me, straight up the aisle and against the wall.  
  
I groaned as I was shoved up against the wall. My mask slid up a bit of the way as my cheek rubbed against the concrete wall. I tried to push myself off, but Lightshaft was behind me, her body pressed against mine and my arm twisted up behind my back.  
  
I kicked backwards, but wasn’t able to do more than brush against her legs. She was too close to me and I wasn’t good at fighting. I twisted and writhed, but wasn’t able to actually _do_ anything.  
  
“The more things change,” Lightshaft said, her voice overlayed with a pleasant harmonious hum, “the more the stay the same. Her other hand was holding onto the opposite shoulder from my twisted arm. “Welcome back, dear.”  
  
“I’m going to get out of this,” I said, wiggling back and forth and trying to throw her off balance. “We aren’t finished yet.”  
  
“No, we really aren’t,” she said, sounding far more amused by all of this then she should. “Now, let’s have a look at that homework, shall we?” Her hand moved from my shoulder so she could wrap her arm around my neck. Not _tight_, but tightness was obviously an option. “Last time we met, I told you to come up with a name. Have you?”  
  
I rolled my eyes and flung my head backwards, trying to break her nose. Nothing. The next thing I knew, she was practically whispering into my ear, and I could see the softly glowing light out of the corner of one eye.  
  
“Now, now,” she said, almost laughing, “do remember what I said about coming up with a name for you on my own. Unless you’d rather have me write about tonight and post it online using one of _my_ names, you better share what you’ve come up with.”  
  
I glared at the concrete right in front of my eyes. But unless I was able to somehow subdue her, she was going to be able to carry out her threat. And I _did_ have a name, and obviously I _should_ share it.  
  
“Jaunt,” I growled, resting my forehead against the wall. “I’m Jaunt.”  
  
“Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, pronouncing it slightly differently than I had. “Hm. Not a name I would have picked. A tad too light and happy for your powerset and attitude. However,” her tone lightened a bit, “if that’s your name, that’s your name.”  
  
“I’m glad you approve,” I said, trying to take advantage of her distraction to wiggle free. It didn’t work. Her fingers were still tight on my skin, and I could feel her pressed against my back.  
  
“Now, onto other matters,” Lightshaft said. “Namely, what you’re wearing.”  
  
God. This was just shit-on-my-clothes night, wasn’t it? I frowned and rolled my eyes, and tried again to get out of this position. And again, nothing happened. All I really did was grind against Lightshaft’s body.  
  
“Now, I understand,” Lightshaft said soothingly. “You’re a new cape, you’re just starting out, you don’t _really_ have an identity nailed down yet… Money’s probably a concern too, given how young you sound.”  
  
She wasn’t wrong, but hearing this from her didn’t really make me happy, either. What made me _confused_ was how I could feel something hard starting to press into my butt. My face flushed as I realized what that had to be.  
  
I couldn’t believe this. How could she possibly getting hard? Who could get turned on here? Who could get turned on by _me_? Although I had read an article that rapists weren’t choosy about _who_ they went after, just so long as they could put the victim in their power.  
  
I shook my head, trying not to think about rape. That wasn’t happening, it just _wasn’t_. All Lightshaft was doing was talking.  
  
“Still, there are things you need to keep in mind,” Lightshaft said, her voice calm and slightly amused. “For one, protection.” I stiffened in her grip. “I’m lucky. My robes do that job for me. But unless this smokescreen of yours is bulletproof…”  
  
I shook my head. I hadn’t tested it out, obviously, but I hadn’t seen the smoke slow down a thing besides Lightshaft’s arrows.  
  
“Then you’re going to want to buy a bullet-proof vest or something,” Lightshaft said. “Maybe a helmet. Listen to me, Jaunt,” she said, her voice hard and firm. “If you’re going to go out fighting people like me, you need something between metal and your skin.” Her gloved hand slid underneath the top of my shirt, suddenly pressing against my skin. I gasped. “Street clothes aren’t going to cut it, okay?”  
  
“W-w-where am I going to get armor?” I asked, putting as much fight as I could into my voice. Her hand was still pressing against the skin of my left shoulder. It felt warm. In fact, warmth was spreading throughout my entire body. “Go mug a cop?”  
  
“I could give you a list of some cops who need a good seeing-to,” Lightshaft said. “But since you’re trying to be a hero, maybe something a bit more legal?” I rolled my eyes. As if that even needed to be said. “Over on Sycamore and London, One Seven something or other. Tiny little clothing store with purple Vietnamese characters over it. Go inside, tell him I sent you. Do it two nights from now, and you’ll have something to protect you.”  
  
“Why?” I asked, twisting my head around to look at her, the white robe, hood and half-mask, and the dark void where her eyes were. “What do you get out of it?”  
  
“Because I don’t want to see you dead,” Lightshaft said. I could picture the raised eyebrow. “Is that so hard to believe?”  
It was hard to form an answer to that. Mostly because of how aware I was of her hand still on my shoulder. It was squeezing down, just a bit. Not really _hard_, but there was no way I could ignore it as it touched me. I took a deep, shuddering breath.  
  
But also because- I was a hero and she was a villain. We were _enemies_. I was trying to arrest her, to make her answer for her crimes. Why would she try to help me? It didn’t make sense. Not one bit.  
  
“As for the rest of your costume,” Lightshaft said, her head disappearing out of my peripheral vision, “do I really need to comment on it? You need something that screams _you_. When people see my robes, they know who I am. When they see Armsmaster’s _outline_, they know who he is.”  
  
“I’ve got my shadows,” I grunted, feeling stung. This was starting to sound like Emma mocking my clothes in front of her friends.  
  
“Yes, and you wear clothing underneath them,” Lightshaft said. “Next time I see you, try to wear something a bit more professional, okay? I can’t really help you there, but get something together you wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen on the news in.”  
  
“Or what? You’ll make a blog post mocking what I wear?”  
  
“No,” Lightshaft said, her voice amused. “I think instead.” The glowing fringe of her hood appeared at the edge of my vision again, “the next time you lose, I think I’ll up the stakes a bit.” Her hand slid a bit deeper underneath my shirt. “When you’re generating that smoke of yours, nobody can see underneath it, right?”  
  
I nodded. Where was she going with this? Beyond somewhere bad, obviously. And her hand was still rubbing against the top of my shoulder. Sweat was breaking out all over my body, and there was a dull churning in my lower stomach.  
  
“Then they won’t be able to see underneath even if you’re naked, either,” she practically purred into my ear. I stiffened, my jaw dropping, tugging at my mask. “I’ll leave the mask on. But then you’re going to have to go back home naked. Completely and utterly naked, without a stitch of clothing from your feet to your neck.” Was she pressing closer to me, or did I just think that she was?  
  
“People will pass you on the street. They might even recognize you as Jaunt. And when they look at you, they’ll be seeing a naked girl. They’d just need to push their hand through the smoke, and touch soft, bare flesh.”  
  
Her other hand was on my hip by now. Even through the material of my work pants, I could feel the pressure of her hand. It wasn’t doing anything, just staying there. My own hands weren’t doing anything, either, just limply hanging at my sides.  
  
I was practically hyperventilating by now. I could picture it. What it would be like to go back home to Mom, having to sneak into the house without a stitch of clothing on. God, this shouldn’t be so arousing. But the lust boiling inside of me was at a whole different level from almost anything I had felt before. What was _wrong_ with me, to be feeling like this?  
  
“So if you _don’t_ want that to happen,” Lightshaft said, practically purring straight into my ear, “come back next time with something more durable between your body and the big, bad world.”  
  
I made a whimpering sound. My head was whirling, like I was on a fair ride. I could barely think. The images Lightshaft had put inside my mind were refusing to go away. And she was still so _close_ to me. I could feel her hands on me, her front pressed against my back.  
  
Lightshaft laughed. Then I felt her hands slide away from me. I gasped, not turning around as I heard the rapid patter of feet against the concrete floor. The light dancing against the wall in front of me gradually faded away, until I was left in the darkness.  
  
I was alone in the empty factory. I slowly turned around and sank down, back against the wall. I cradled my head in my hands, staring at the ground. I was shaking, trembling like a leaf in the wind. There were so many emotions running around inside of me I couldn’t even hope to sort them all out.  
  
What the hell had all of that been? Had it really happened? Did Lightshaft really tell me all that stuff? Did she really touch me? Had I liked it?  
  
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to focus on breathing in and out. How was she making me feel like this? Some kind of weird power? Or was she like a cult leader and knew how to get inside of my head?  
  
I didn’t know how long I sat there on the floor. Finally, I staggered upright, looking around. Nothing. No Lightshaft, no goons, no cops, nothing. And no reason for me to stay here in the dark, cold, empty factory.  
  
I fished around for my baton, and started staggering for the exit. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I didn’t feel up for using my powers to dash forward. No, I just needed… I just needed. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do after this.  
  
It couldn’t hurt to go visit that shop on Sycamore, at least. And go as Jaunt, obviously. Yeah. Focus on that. Focus on making sure I kept myself safe out on the streets. And the next time I met Lightshaft, I breathed in and out, trying to force myself to be calm, the next time I met her, I wouldn’t go down so easily. This time, I would beat _her_.  
  
That was something worth looking forward to.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As of September 1, 2019, I've added a bit to Chapter Two.

My breathing was loud in my ears as I stared at the screen. I was practically curled over my hand, two fingers rubbing against my outer folds and a third pumping in and out of me. My other hand was playing with my chest, rubbing my small breasts and teasing my stiff nipples. My pants were down around my ankles and my shirt was up around my shoulders.

Behind my glasses, my eyes were wide as I stared at the screen. On my computer, there was a comic of some fictional superheroine giving a blowjob to the thugs that had defeated her. I didn’t know why, but it just seemed so _hot_, even better then normal blowjobs.

I tabbed over to another web page, and moaned, looking at the woman there. She was a real woman, ropes tying her to the bed, wrapped around her wrists and ankles and her torso. The pace of my finger increased as I touched myself. I normally never looked at this stuff before. But the thumbnails I had seen as I… looked around had just been so _tempting_. And what was the worst that could happen if I just took a quick look? That had been fifteen minutes ago, and I _knew_ I had made the right choice.

This was probably the best masturbation session I had ever had. I was just so _turned on_, the arousal buzzing inside of me like an electrical current. As I masturbated, clicking between stories and images and even a game, I felt my heart pounding in my chest, beating against my ribs.

I leaned back in the chair, almost rising out of it as I fingered myself. I was getting close, I was getting _real_ close. I stared at the screen, feeling the lust inside of me rising to a fever pitch. Just a few more seconds…

“Taylor!”

I just about jumped out of my skin. I felt shock and confusion for maybe three seconds before dread set in me. I twisted around. Mom was standing in the door of my bedroom. My open door. Her eyes were as wide as mine as she looked at me. Then she glanced at the computer screen. And from the angle she was at, I _knew_ she could see what was on it.

“Mo-Mom!” I shrieked, my hands clumsy as I pulled at my clothing. “What are you _doing_?”

“I,” Mom turned her head away and stared hard at the corner of my room, “was knocking on your door and calling you. I _thought_ you had gone outside.”

I hadn’t heard a _thing_. I was barely even hearing Mom now as anger and embarrassment warred within me. I pulled my pants up so hard it hurt and held them in both hands, not quite up for fumbling with my belt right now.

“Well, you, you should have…” I trailed off, not sure what to say. I was kind of wishing I could just die right here and now. “Come on, Mom!”

“Listen,” Mom said, stepping out of my bedroom, her cheeks flushed, “just… come downstairs when you’re ready to, okay? We can talk there.”

And then she was gone, going down the hall. I could hear the creak of the stairs, even over the pounding in my ears. I closed the net browser and buried my head in my hands. I kind of felt like I was going to throw up. The arousal was draining out of me like water out of a bathtub.

Man, this was the worst masturbation session I had _ever_ had.

Five minutes later, I was slowly making my way down the stairs. I could see the light on in the living room, even though, with the sun still out, it wasn’t needed. I swallowed heavily and stepped into the room.

I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to have a fight with Mom. I didn’t want to lose my computer.

I kept my face blank, calling on what I had learned from Emma and her friends. Inside, my stomach was turning over, nausea and worry boiling up inside of me. My legs were quaking with the effort of not running.

Mom didn’t say anything as I sat on the chair opposite the couch. She was looking at me, her arm propped on the armrest and her head propped on her arm. As soon as I sat down, she took a deep breath and fixed me with a look.

“First of all, Taylor, I’m not mad at you.”

That was good to hear. But I still knew that just because she wasn’t mad at me didn’t mean she wasn’t going to punish me. I didn’t say anything as I looked at her.

“At your age, having a sex drive is natural.” Her lips twitched upward a bit. “At _my_ age, having a sex drive is normal. That you look at porn isn’t bad.” I slowly untensed, though not very much. “I just want to make sure you’re doing it in a smart way.”

She paused and looked at me. I swallowed and licked my lips.

“Like what?” I asked, my voice kept level with a _lot_ of effort. “I already use an anti-virus program. For everything not just-,” yeah, I wasn’t saying porn in front of my mom.

“That’s good, Taylor.” Mom’s voice was calm, and so was her face. “But you also need to be safe up _here_,” she tapped the side of her head. “Taylor,” she leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees, “just because you see something online doesn’t mean that it’s smart or right to do in real life.”

Okay, that hurt. How dumb did Mom think I was? I bristled, glaring at her a bit.

“I _know_ that, Mom,” I said, my voice no longer quite so flat and even.

“I’m sure you think you know it, Taylor,” Mom said, her voice still placid. “But…” she sighed. “I don’t know if there’s anyone else in your life who you’re interested in, but just remember.” She looked me dead in the eyes. “Think over what you do with other people. _Before_ you do it.”

“Yes, Mom,” I said.

It was good advice. I _knew_ it was good advice, but that wasn’t exactly why I was agreeing to it. I was agreeing so that Mom would stop trying to talk to me about this. I’d agree to almost _anything_ if it meant I could stop having Mom talk to me about how to masturbate.

“And Taylor,” she said, a warmer note entering her voice. “If you ever need to talk to me about anything, I’m here for you.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, thinking that I’d rather saw my own foot off than talk to Mom about masturbation.

“And that goes for _anything_,” she added a twinkle in her eye. “Techniques, how-to guides, toys-“

“Mom!” I shrieked, covering my hands with my ears. I could still hear her laughter through them, and could see her turning away, covering her mouth with her hand as she laughed. My face flushed.

“Sorry, Taylor, sorry,” she said, still giggling. “I couldn’t resist. But I am serious about always being here for you. No matter what, and no matter when.”

I hesitated for a second. Should I tell her about being Jaunt? No, not yet. Not until I had done more to prove that I was being a good hero.

“Thanks, Mom. I will,” I said, looking at her.

“Good,” Mom said, giving me a quick smile. “Now, for once I’m all caught up on my work, and I was going to go shopping. Want to spend your Sunday afternoon grocery shopping with your mom?”

“Sure,” I said, glad beyond words for the change in topic. “Give me a minute.”

I stood up and headed for upstairs. Okay, that had gone _way_ better than I could have hoped. And, with any luck, it was something we were never going to talk about ever again.  
*******  
The grocery trip had extended into an actual shopping trip. We were moving through the Lord Street Market, tons of people all around us. The reassuring weight of my wallet in my front left pocket told me that the crowds weren’t getting _too_ close, at least.

“Do you need any new clothes?” Mom asked, looking over a rack of proudly advertised, locally-made shirts. None of them looked like they would fit me, or that they were anything I would want to wear.

“Nah,” I said, joining her in looking through them.

They were all _very_ brightly colored, which was bad. That meant that, even in the few days remaining in the school year, Emma would find _something_ to do to ruin them. Juice or glue or _something_. Better to play it safe with what I had. And I was already tasking a risk in having Mom wonder why she wasn’t going to see me wearing the clothes I had already bought a few stalls ago.

We turned away from the small stall and kept on walking. The Market was packed with stalls and people and the occasional small vehicle. It was in a small area and busier than the pricier, more tourist-friendly Boardwalk. Here, if you got your wallet stolen, there were no capital-E Enforcers to beat up the nearest minority and say that they must have stashed the wallet somewhere. And they seemed to be doing that a lot lately. It was even starting to get in the papers, every other month or so.

I still liked it. Here, there were all kinds of vendors, while on the Boardwalk, you could get pricy clothing, pricy antiques, pricy souvenirs and pricey snack food. Here, I actually bought something every now and then. Mostly from the lady with the second-hand books in a wheelbarrow.

It was nice to spend time like this with Mom. No pressure, no meetings that Mom was going to have to get to, it was just the two of us. It should have been the three of us, but well…

I couldn’t bring back the dead. Sometimes it seemed that I couldn’t do anything at all. But at least I could spend some time with Mom, for however long that ended up being.

Mom worked a _lot_. A lot more than she actually needed to, I knew. I wasn’t blind. It was obvious that she spent more time reviewing and meeting and grading and planning three weeks after Dad died, even though she was in the same job.

But, well… it wasn’t like I could tell her not to or anything. And I needed space myself. And then, as the raw edges gradually faded, it was practically normal for Mom to be working that much. After that, things just settled into the routine of Mom putting in extra hours and me spending a lot of time by myself.

It would have been nice to spend that time with friends, but, well, thanks again, Emma. I shook my head and looked around. I shouldn’t be sulking like this, not with a relatively rare chance like this to be with Mom.

“You doing okay, honey?” Mom said, turning to look at me as we made way for a slow-moving, loudly-honking golf cart, laden with shoes.

“Yeah, Mom,” I said, the words coming easily to my lips. “I’m doing fine.” I looked around the stalls. “You want to get some shaved ice? I’ll pay.”

“You’ll pay?” Mom said with a grin as we started towards the stall. “For both of us? Obviously I’m _much_ too generous with your allowance.”

I rolled my eyes. Money _was_ tight, especially since I had just bought a few pieces of dark, long clothing to work as the base for my next Jaunt costume (now with bulletproof vest and helmet). But it wasn’t _that_ bad.

A few minutes later, I was slurping at a blue raspberry cone, and Mom was licking a blackberry-flavored one. It tasted nice, especially with how hot it was. Early June, in the afternoon, in a city, in a crowded street, was pretty toasty. Most of the people around me were in t-shirts or shorts.

But not- wow. Holy shit. Those were superheroes up ahead. I could see bright clothes, through the crowd. I nudged Mom, and she turned to look as well.

“Isn’t that New Wave?” I asked, taking a few steps towards the pair.

“I think so,” Mom said with a frown. “Let’s go take a look.”

That sounded fine to me. We slipped through the crowds. Some of them were watching the heroes, and some of them were just continuing on with their shopping.

Finally, I got close enough to see who it was. Obviously New Wave, and after a minute’s thought, I recognized them. Lady Photon and her daughter, Laserdream. They both looked pretty cool, hovering above the street, light almost seeming to radiate off of their white costumes. They were both smiling as they talked to people in the surrounding crowds, shaking hands and laughing.

I couldn’t imagine doing something similar, and not just because my power set wasn’t as cool as theirs were. They really seemed to be in their element, a large smile on Lady Photon’s face as she talked to some guy a few years older than me as he took notes.

“Really makes you glad, doesn’t it?” Mom said by my side. “Seeing the heroes out like this.” She waved her half-eaten cone for emphasis, almost making it slide out and slap me in the cheek. “And being able to see their faces, that’s important, too. Makes them more relatable.”

Should I do that, show off some of my face so that people would like and trust me? That _did_ seem like a pretty important part of being a superhero, after all. Something to think about, I supposed.  
I turned my head. There was an argument going on along the other side of the street. An Asian teenager, maybe a year older than me, and a middle-aged white guy were loudly talking, almost shouting, at each other. The older man had the teen’s wrist in his hand, and was shaking it back and forth.

“-think you… can steal… with it?” The voice of the man intermittently carried across the street towards me. He was glaring at the kid, and the kid looked ready to either punch him or start running.

I wasn’t the only one to notice it, either. Laserdream stepped away from her mother and moved through the crowd, people actively stepping out of their way to avoid getting in her path. I got a bit closer as well, realizing I should probably be taking notes on how she handled this.

“Is something wrong here?” Laserdream asked in a calm, confident, slightly warm voice as she looked between the teen and the adult.

“This little rat was going to steal from me,” the man said, jerking his head towards a booth filled with DVDs and CD cases.

“The hell I was,” the teen shot back, wrenching his wrist out of the man’s grip as soon as it slackened. “You treat all your customers like that, or am I just special?”

“Was anything taken?” Laserdream said, waving her hand in between the two as they glared at each other.

“Not _this_ time, no,” the man growled, glancing at me and a few others who had stopped to watch. “But I’ve been losing merchandise left and right thanks to thieving little bastards like this.”

“The hell you have,” the teen said again. “I’ve never even been to your shitty stall before. And you think I’m coming back here? Screw you, pal.”

“You going to arrest this asshole or what?” the man said.

“Arrest him?” Laserdream asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking even more skeptical than she sounded. “For _what_?”

“For being a shoplifter,” the man snarled, giving her a none-too-friendly look. “Look at him! Scum like that, taking over the city. Shouldn’t you heroes be doing something about crooks like him stealing from hard-working folk?”

“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?” Laserdream asked sourly. “You yourself said that he hadn’t done anything.” She turned her head towards the teen. “You’re free to go, mister.”

“Thank you so very much,” the boy said, giving the shopkeeper one last, dirty look. “And fuck you pal.” He started pushing through the crowd, which was a lot less willing to open in front of him than it had been for Laserdream.

“Nothing but a bunch of thugs,” the man muttered, going back around his stall and sitting down behind it. “Pouring in through the harbor, robbing us, taking our jobs…”

He kept on going in that vein, but I had already tuned him out. I watched Laserdream rejoin her mother. Lady Photon had spent the entire time talking to the journalist or whatever, but she still gave her daughter a nod of approval as the younger girl took up her spot behind and to the side of her mother.

I took the few steps back I needed to get to my own mother. Mom had been watching the entire thing in silence, and she still didn’t say much as I rejoined her. Just a few words of welcome now that I was back at her side.

I was just as glad, really. It gave me time to think. If _I_ had been there instead of Laserdream, could I have handled things in the same way? It didn’t _seem_ like a very complex incident, but would people have listened to me? Well, maybe in time. Once people knew who I was. Then people would listen to what I had to say.

And I had to admit, it would be _nice_ to have people listen to me. Mom was pretty much the only person I knew who did. Nobody at school. No friends. And even Lightshaft, maybe she’d listen to me if I said _no_ firmly enough, but I wasn’t sure one way or another. I looked over at the mother and daughter duo again. They looked so beautiful and powerful and respected. I sighed.

“You want to go and say hi?” Mom said, looking at me as I finally looked away from the two superheroes. “Maybe get an autograph?”

I hesitated for a second, and then reconsidered. That actually sounded like a good idea. Not for the autograph, but to talk to other heroes (and I still couldn’t quite believe that I could describe heroes as _other_). I nodded and quickly slurped up the rest of my shaved ice, wincing as cold needles seemed to stab into my brain. Mom laughed at my expression, and took my bag.

Just in time, too. Laserdream and Lady Photon were drifting along the street, slowly rising higher and higher. They were obviously getting ready to leave, and I didn’t want to have to go to their home to talk to them there.

“Lady Photon?” I called out, pushing through the crowds as the two of them turned down an alley. “Lady Photon, could I talk to you, just for a second?”

The older woman, about Mom’s age, turned around and saw me. She gave me a quick, pretty meaningless smile and floated down to the ground. Her daughter stayed a few feet back.

“What is it, young lady?” Lady Photon asked. For a second, the nickname Photon Mom, the one that she obviously hated, flashed through my mind. She sure looked like a mom in the general area of facial expressions, capped with blonde hair, and on top of a body I wished I had, covered by a white and purple costume I was _also_ jealous of.

“I just wanted to say,” I glanced backwards. There was nobody there. “thank you for everything you and your family does.” I was barely able to stop myself from rubbing my hands together nervously. “You’ve done a whole lot to help Brockton Bay.”

“Thank you for the kind words,” Lady Photon said. Somehow, I got the impression that she was running on autopilot while she was actually thinking of something else. “It’s always nice to hear from the public.”

“I’m not just a civilian,” I said, lowering my voice and sticking my arm out. There was still nobody in earshot except for her and Laserdream. “I’m a hero too.” I let shadows run up and down my arm for a second before puffing out. “And I,” I made sure my voice stayed quiet, “I know how tough it is, even though I’m still new. So, thank you.”

“And thank you, in turn,” Lady Photon said, giving me a closer look. I flushed and turned my head away. “So many people turn villain when they get powers.” She got close enough to shake my hand, her glove pressing against my fingers and palm. “I’m glad to meet a young woman who can tell what the right thing to do is.”

“Thank you,” I squeaked, my face going red. “My name’s T-Jaunt!” That was a bit too loud, and the amused expressions on their faces didn’t help. “I’ve barely done anything so far, but I will! I promise you I will.”

“And I’m sure you will,” Laserdream said, giving me a big smile. She was a very pretty blonde, far better looking than I was. And even with what I was going to do to my costume, she had a better outfit than I did, clean and bright, with scarlet lines breaking up her white costume. “It’s nice to meet another teen hero who’s not in the Wards.”

“Although this isn’t a good time or place to discuss heroics,” Lady Photon said. “Here.” She fished a card out of her belt, and handed it to me. “Send me an email, and we talk about things more privately.”

“Yes,” I said, clutching the card and glancing down at it. “I will. Thank you!” I said, backing up towards the alley entrance. “Thank you both so much.”

There was a big smile on my face as I left the alley and looked around for Mom. I’d met other heroes. And they seemed to like me. That was- wow, that was huge. I was going to _have_ to make sure to follow up on this. Not actually, join New Wave or anything. There was no way I was making my identity public. But learning from heroines had to be better than learning from a villain.

“Hi, Taylor,” Mom said, giving me an one-armed hug as I returned to her side. “Who’d you get an autograph of?”

I blinked for a second. Then my jaw fell open and my cheeks flushed. Mom took one look at my face and started laughing.

After a bit, I started to laugh as well.


	5. Chapter 5

I was thinking I had made a mistake in coming out on patrol tonight. It was _wet_, a early summer shower coming through and not letting up. And as good as my new costume was, it wasn’t really water-proof. I was _wet_ and getting cranky.  
  
And there wasn’t anything to do to take my mind off of things. If there was anyone else out on the streets tonight, I wasn’t seeing them. I supposed everyone else had the sense to stay inside when it was raining.  
  
Muttering to myself, I stomped through a puddle, staring at the wet sidewalk. Man, this was _not_ the glamorous life. But it wasn’t as if I could just go home, either. Mom was spending too much time home at nights and evenings in the past week. If I was going to go out and be a hero, I had to take the chances I could get to leave the house without her there to notice.  
  
…Not that I wanted Mom away from home, I mentally added, looking over what I had just thought. It was great to spend time with Mom, but I also _needed_ to be a hero, and I just couldn’t tell her about that. Not yet.  
  
A flash of movement in the corner of my vision caught my eye. I whipped my head around, body tensing. Then I felt like an _idiot_.  
  
I’d been startled by my own reflection in a store window. The lights inside were turned off, but I could still see me in the barred window. And I liked what I saw.  
  
I’d done a _major_ redesign of my costume. Although you could also say that I had just done a _design_ of my costume, instead of grabbing whatever black clothing I had and calling it good.  
  
I was wearing the bulletproof vest underneath my top. It was a lot heavier than I had expected, and I was constantly using a bit of my smoke to give myself some extra strength. But Lightshaft had been right. Getting shot would be sure to suck, and this was a _lot_ better alternative.  
  
The same went for my helmet. It looked more like a hockey helmet than something I saw soldiers wearing on TV. But the man who gave it to me swore up and down that it was military-grade. And it wasn’t like I was going to get shot in the head with this on and then an actual military helmet just to see if he was telling the truth.  
  
I had painted it black, and figured out a way to attach the upper half of a face mask (also black) to it. For the lower half of my face, I had a veil on. Thick enough to hide my features, but thin enough my voice wasn’t muffled by it. I was thinking of putting a pattern or a symbol on it, if I could figure out what I wanted.  
  
Down below, over my vest, I had a newer set of dark clothes. They went together a lot better than the old stuff had, and wasn’t too baggy. Or too heavy, which was a good quality for black clothes in summer. Even at night.  
  
I was no Alexandria. Heck, I wasn’t even Shadow Stalker. But I still thought I looked good in my costume. And, with luck, it was _enough_ of a costume that people would think that I was a superhero instead of just some mugger.  
  
Nodding to myself, I kept on walking. It was a good thing that I had started working out, because _man_, city blocks took a lot longer to walk than they did to drive along. I was going to cover maybe a section of the city, oh, four blocks square, and then head back home. And that should still take up enough time I was going to be groggy tomorrow morning.  
  
Even if I didn’t see anyone. And I _should_ be seeing someone. This part of the city was on the amorphous edge between the Merchants and the ABB, so there should have been some gang members around, trying to make the border a bit less ill-defined. But either they _really_ didn’t like the rain, or they were _really_ good at hide-and-seek, because I was-  
  
Okay, there was someone half a block away. I flushed, feeling kind of stupid all of a sudden. They saw me as well and started towards me. Even from here, even with half of the lights busted, I could tell that they were in civvie clothes.  
  
As I got closer, I could pick out some more details. They were a he, middle-aged, a bit fat, with short-cut black hair. Rain glistened off his pale skin, since he wasn’t wearing a hat, or even a coat. Just a light windbreaker.  
  
“Who the hell are you?” He said, stopping a few yards away and frowning at me.  
  
“I’m Jaunt, a superhero,” I said calmly. “And you are…”  
  
“I’m Mike,” he said, looking back to the side street he had popped out of. “What the hell took you?”  
  
“Sorry?” I asked, looking behind him. There was nothing but steadily falling rain.  
  
“You didn’t come because of my call?” He asked, frowning at me.  
  
“I’m an independent, Mike,” I said, “I’m not part of the Wards or anything. What’s wrong?”  
  
“Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Well, if you’re it…” He pulled himself together as I frowned at him. “I called the cops half an hour ago, telling them about some funny sounds I heard in my apartment.” He pointed half-way up a building that must have bordered the street he came out from. “They said they’d come and take a look and that was _half an hour ago_.”  
  
“Okay,” I said. “What kinds of sounds were they, Mike?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he helpfully said, shrugging his shoulders and pulling his unzipped windbreaker closer around him. “They were kind of…” he frowned, waving his hands around as if trying to push his thoughts into shape, “a creaking sound? And I thought I heard voices, maybe.”  
  
“Okay,” I said. “And what’s back there?”  
  
“Some shops, some more apartment buildings,” he said, shrugging helplessly. Yeah, I could sympathize. I knew my block _really_ well, but if quizzed on it, I’d stare blankly trying to remember the house colors. “Nothing much.”  
  
“Okay,” I said, stepping around him. “You just go inside and try to get some sleep, okay? I’ll go take a look and see what’s going on.”  
  
“Um, okay,” he said, “Thanks, Miss, um…”  
  
“My name’s Jaunt,” I reminded him.  
  
He nodded and followed me for a few steps before stepping into the doorway of what I _hoped_ was his apartment building. I heard the door open and close behind me as I walked past blank windows towards the alley.  
  
Weird. I shook my head, thinking about Mike. A man twice my age at least, worried and unsure, and he was taking directions from me just because I was a hero. Was that _him_, or people as a whole?  
  
I started generating shadows as I peeked around the wall, looking down the alley. Nothing. Some vehicles, some dumpsters and some back exits, all of them glistening in the rain. Fingering my baton, I _dashed_, moving from the mouth of the alley down behind a parked van.  
  
I froze as, up above me, a light switched on. I looked up and saw a bulky male figure, surely Mike, against the window. I waved at him, and then looked down the alley. Still nothing. But if I concentrated…  
  
Yeah, I could hear something. More of a ripping sound, to my ear, than a creaking. Whatever. Couldn’t hear any voices, though.  
  
I spent my smoke to move from the van a bit further along the alley. In fact, I aimed up a bit, and by the time my, heh, jaunt was done, I was clinging to the side of a fire escape, looking down the entire length of the alley.  
  
I wasn’t strong enough to keep hold of the metal bars for long, not without making a huge racket as I climbed through them onto the actual fire escape. But I lasted long enough. I dropped down to the asphalt, grinning underneath my veil. About another quarter of the way down the alley, there was a door hanging open. That had to be it. The van parked right next to it, the back doors hanging open, just confirmed it.  
  
I dashed up to it, looking around. There was nobody else in sight. Even Mike’s window was barely in view. I paused right by the door, and peeked around it, waiting for my shadows to regenerate.  
  
Inside- I couldn’t believe it. I literally couldn’t. I rubbed my eyes, not quite understanding what I was seeing. It was Lightshaft. _Again_.  
  
Seriously, what were the odds of me meeting her three times in a row? _I_ wasn’t seeking her out. Sure, I wanted to beat her, but I didn’t have any way to track her down or anything. And I was sure she couldn’t somehow do the same to me, predicting where I would be. It must be some _weird_ kind of luck.  
  
Hopefully it was good luck for me. I shook my head, and took a closer look at where she was, and what she was doing.  
  
Okay, she was standing in front of… machinery. I focused, and looked at the whirring machinery, the sounds floating through the open door and drifting back to Mike’s apartment. And, finally, it clicked.  
  
It was a printing press, and looked like it belonged there, sitting in the middle of the floor with what looked to my highly trained eye as a bunch of junk surrounding it. Lightshaft was looking down at it, and a guy in a white polo shirt, tan slacks and, very incongruously, a dollar-bin vampire mask, was fussing around it. I couldn’t see what they were doing that was illegal, but come on. It was Lightshaft.  
  
My shadows were as thick as they were going to get. As the man started lifting a pallet jack, covered with a dozen or so bundles of whatever they were printing, I stood up and stepped through the door.  
  
“Alright, both of you,” I said, making my voice as hard and firm as I could. “Hold it right there.”  
  
Lightshaft leisurely turned around, while the guy just about jumped out of his skin. I strode up to him and grabbed his shoulder, glaring at him through my visor. He pulled away, pressing his side into the shaft of the jack.  
  
“I feel like I should be taking a restraining order out on you,” Lightshaft said, sounding far too amused in her many-layered voice. “You do keep on turning up.”  
  
“Come quietly and I’ll visit you in jail every day,” I said, hoping that sounded more impressive out loud than in my head.  
  
“No,” Lightshaft, shaking her head back and forth, her hood twitching. “No, I don’t think so. Mister?” She turned her head a bit and looked at the man I was holding onto. “Once she lets go, go get these loaded. We’ve got most of the run anyways.”  
  
“Y-yeah!” The guy squeaked. I had a feeling that his face was as pale as his mask right now.  
  
“Neither of you are going anywhere,” I said, looking at Lightshaft. She still had her arms crossed in front of her chest, not going for her bow or anything. I _hoped_ she needed to use her bow to shoot stuff. “What are you doing, anyway?” I asked, looking down at the pallet.  
  
Behind my visor, I frowned. There were a bunch of magazines on the pallet, tied up in neat little bundles. _Land of the Free_ blared at me, in big, red, white and blue lettering. _The Patriot’s Publication_ was underneath in smaller type, and the cover image was an American flag with a bunch of text to the side I didn’t take the time to read.  
  
I was kind of familiar with the magazine. I saw it stocked in newsstands and on the library’s magazine rack. _Really_ not my kind of thing. It was about half advertisements for guns, penis enhancers (pretty much the same thing) and full-throated warnings that the only way to survive the coming economic apocalypse was to either sell your worthless gold and buy dollars or sell your worthless dollars and buy gold.  
  
The other half was worse. I could only remember one article, but when you’re publishing stuff about how lucky black people had been in Rhodesia because they didn’t have to serve in the military, I only _needed_ to remember the one. Still didn’t explain why Lightshaft was here, though.  
  
“I said I was going to get my story published,” the man said stubbornly, anger starting to lace its way through the nervousness. “And it’s getting published.”  
  
I glanced down at the bundles of magazines again. The text on the covers was just too small for me to read. I shot my gaze back to Lightshaft. She wasn’t looking quite so casually amused anymore, her hands by her sides, her left hand almost touching the bow across her back.  
  
“Don’t,” I said, stepping _really_ close to the guy. Using a hostage didn’t feel right, but he _was_ her minion or whatever. I wasn’t grabbing some innocent.  
  
“Don’t do what?” Lightshaft asked, her voice light and confident. “Far be it from me to stop an employee from putting in some overtime at his job. For that matter,” her tone grew darker, though there was too much amusement in it for me to take it seriously, “what are _you_ doing, stopping him from doing his work?”  
  
I glared at her. I wasn’t sure what crimes the two of them were committing here, if he was supposed to be here. But they had to be doing _something_ illegal. And anyway, Lightshaft had still broken a bunch of laws in front of me. That was enough to try and arrest her now.  
  
“Lightshaft,” I said, pointing at her with my baton, “you’re-!”  
  
“Under arrest for being a villainous villain, yes, I know,” she said, sounding far more amused than worried. “Think you’ll make it stick this time?”  
  
“And you,” I said, glaring at the masked man through my visor, “you’re going to explain what’s going on here.”  
  
“Really?” He asked, sounding excited. “I can just do that and go?  
“N-“ I started to say, before he kept on talking over me.  
  
“All those times I listened to Hugh rant and rave about government corruption,” the masked man said, jerking his head towards a glassed-off office on the other side of the printing room, “thought he would be interested in cops chumming around with the Empire.” He made a noise like he was going to spit inside his mask. “Learned _my_ lesson. I’m dropping these off, and then I’m off to T-“  
  
“Why don’t you show her your driver’s license while you’re at it?” Lightshaft said sharply. “Get in your van and _go_.”  
  
“He’s not going _anywhere_,” I said, still keeping a firm grip on his shoulder. “You don’t even work here anymore, do-whoa!”  
  
I threw myself to the side as Lightshaft tossed an arrow at me, knocking the guy over onto the pallet. I watched it lazily swing overhead, moving _way_ slower than it normally did. And it looked like half the size as well. Shaking my head, I climbed to my feet, as the guy did likewise, groaning. I tried to grab at him, but I saw Lightshaft moving, and focused on her.  
  
She was pulling her bow off of her back, an arrow already forming inside of it. I ducked to the side, putting a conveyer belt between me and here. I ran along it and then, just before I reached the end, I spent some of my shadows to swing myself over it, giving myself a bit of a boost as I went.  
  
I felt a thrill of joy run through me, seeing Lightshaft aiming at the _end_ of the belt, instead of where I was. It felt nice to get one over her, even a small little victory like this. I ran towards her, feeling my shadows get stripped away but not caring. I was close, I was so close, I was swinging out my baton-!  
  
Lightshaft jumped backwards and bounced off the table behind her, sending paper flying up. Then she outright tackled me, sending us both to the ground. I gasped, feeling a rattle run through my body as the armored vest hit the concrete floor, and my head banged against the support stand of the printing press.  
  
I tried to get up, but Lightshaft was already on me, straddling my torso and grabbing at my hand. I snarled and fought back, even though I had already dropped my baton. But with how she was boiling away my smoke, I couldn’t do much and eventually sagged down in defeat.  
  
“Good try,” Lightshaft said, holding tightly onto my wrists with both hands, keeping my hands above my head. “That honestly could have gone your way, if you’d been a bit more lucky.”  
  
I muttered under my breath, something that was less words and more just grumbles. Lightshaft looked up at me, towards the service entrance.  
  
“Okay, I’ve got things handled here,” she called out. Now that my heart wasn’t pounding so fast, I could hear the rumble of a truck lift going. “You can head out.”  
  
“You sure?” The man said, raising his voice pretty high to carry over the motor. “You’re not going to do anything with the kid, right?”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Lightshaft said, looking down at me. I could _hear_ the smile in her voice. “I’ve met her before, and we’ve always walked away from it. We’ll both be just fine.” She reached down and patted my cheek through the veil, grabbing my hand again before I could get at her.  
  
“Alright,” the man said, sounding a bit dubious. “And hey! Thanks for your help, Lightshaft! Couldn’t have done it with you.”  
  
“Nice knowing you,” Lightshaft said, her glowing hood switching between me and him. We listened to the roar of the truck starting up. It gradually faded away, only leaving the sound of rain falling on concrete outside. “That should be some fun reading tomorrow morning,” Lightshaft said, sounding satisfied.  
  
“You’ll have to read it in jail,” I said, squirming around underneath her and _knowing_ how empty of a threat that was.  
  
Lightshaft didn’t even laugh at that. She just looked down at me, her hands coming down and resting on my shoulders. That should have freed up my hands, but I just couldn’t muster up the energy to fight against her. It always seemed to end up the same way, anyways.  
  
“You’re looking good, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, her hood moving up and down a bit as she looked me over. “Like what you’ve done with the mask,” her knuckles rapped on my visor. “Could stand to do with a bit more customization, but that sort of thing will come in time.”  
  
It felt kind of nice to know that someone else thought the new variant of my costume looked good. I just wished it was someone besides Lightshaft. Even if she was responsible for the upgrade.  
  
“And I’m _very_ glad to see you’ve got some armor,” Lightshaft said, sliding her hands down to the armored vest and giving it a rattle. “It will keep all kinds of things out.”  
  
Well, yes, that was the -!  
  
My snippy comment got cut off inside my own hand as Lightshaft’s hands went down to the bottom of the armor, and then ducked underneath my shirt and the vest, and started to go back _up_. Directly against my bare skin.  
  
I gasped, my eyes going wide. She was _touching_ me. Actually, no shit, touching me, her gloves pressing against my bare skin. I started squirming around, trying to wrap my head around what was happening.  
  
“Armor can keep all kinds of things out, away from your skin,” Lightshaft said, her hands pressing down on the sides of my torso, sending electric tingles up and down my body. “Hopefully you won’t need it, but if you do? You _need_ it.”  
  
“You, you’re,” I stuttered, trying to figure out what I should say. And what I was feeling.  
  
Because her hands felt _nice_. I squirmed around, and that didn’t do much, since I was still pressed up against her. At least, that was what I thought at first.  
  
Then my eyes went down a bit lower, and I saw that my squirming was doing _something_. There was a bulge in Lightshaft’s robe that I was pretty certain wasn’t there before, and didn’t quite look like a fold of cloth. I whimpered, staring at it.  
  
“Now,” Lightshaft said, seeming to ignore what I was staring at, “there’s a couple of different reasons you’ve lost every time we’ve met. Although,” her hands started to slide back down my torso. I still didn’t know if that was good or bad, “I’d be interested in hearing what you think the biggest reason is.”  
  
I frowned, trying to concentrate. And it was _really_ hard to concentrate. Especially because, for a second, I thought that Lightshaft was going to stop going under my shirt, and slide into my pants. And I knew how I felt about _that_.  
  
But she didn’t. Instead, she slid underneath my shirt, but not my vest, and moved her hands up my side. I frowned, before I felt her fiddling with the straps keeping the plates close to my body. Then I realized what she was planning to do.  
  
“Hey,” I said, wiggling around underneath her. “What do you think…”  
  
“That’s not a very good answer to my question,” Lightshaft said, bopping my nose. “Try to focus, Jaunt.”  
  
I tried to focus. It wasn’t easy. Especially since I felt the breast plate sag down, pressing on my torso.  
  
“You’ve got a year and a half of experience on me,” I said, trying to not get distracted by Lightshaft’s hands sliding back up along my bare skin, lifting the armor plate up as she went. “That’s-!” I gasped as she tickled me, her fingers pressing against my sides. “You know all kinds of tricks!” I said in a quick, high-pitched voice, trying to keep from laughing.  
  
“That’s one answer,” Lightshaft said. “Can you think of any others?”  
  
For a moment, all I was really able to think about was how Lightshaft’s fingers were touching the bottom of my sports bra. They weren’t moving higher; they weren’t moving lower. They weren’t moving at all, just staying there, her fingertips touching the bottom edge of my bra.  
  
“Your power messes with mine,” I said, quivering. I wanted her to take her hands back down, but it felt so _nice_ to have them there. Or maybe even…  
  
“True,” Lightshaft said, “but your interferes with mine as well. I think even a killing arrow would be blunted by the time it reached your skin. Not that I intend to try that out,” she added with what sounded like a smile.  
  
I jerkily nodded, half-listening to her. I ran her words back through my head. I still didn’t keep a very good grasp of them. And then they flew out of my head entirely as Lightshaft inched her hands up a bit more, sliding over my sports bra.  
  
I moaned, feeling red bloom to life on my cheeks. She was touching my breasts. Part of me couldn’t believe it. The rest of me couldn’t decide what to think.  
  
Lightshaft was a _villain_. A villain who had defeated me with humiliating ease every time we met, and had _such_ a smug attitude. I should be screaming my head off about rape.  
  
But… I liked her touch. It was a _really_ shameful thought, one I buried in the very depths of my mind rather than think about. But it was true. She was making me feel good, moving her fingers back and forth on my breasts, even over my sports bra.  
  
“Jaunt?” Lightshaft asked. “Focus, Jaunt.”  
  
“Ah, ah, yes!” I squeaked, trying to think of other reasons Lightshaft had beaten me. “I don’t know! You’re better than-“ Okay, I wasn’t going to say _that_.  
  
“No, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, shaking her head back and forth. I stared up into the dark void between her hood and her mask, unable to see even a hint of her eyes. “Without changing me, or changing yourself, how can you beat me?”  
  
I racked my brain. Critical thinking _and_ getting groped like this was a really _weird_ combination, and it was really hard to focus on the former.  
  
And Lightshaft wasn’t helping, either. She kept on touching me, playing with my small breasts, her fingers pressing against the small amount of fat I had. It didn’t feel _anything_ like when I masturbated. It felt _better_.  
  
I did my best to focus, to shut out the nice feelings of Lightshaft playing with my body. If I didn’t change, and she didn’t change, then what _would_ need to change to make me beat her?  
  
“Bring in others!” I finally said, not sure if it was the right answer. But it was the only answer coming to me.  
  
“Yes!” Lightshaft said, nodding quickly. “Exactly.” She ran her thumb over my nipple. “You can’t do this job alone. Even the first time we met, I had somebody out on the street, watching for cop cars.” She shifted position on top of me, and I stared at the bulge in her robes. “You need someone else to watch your back, Jaunt. And you don’t have anyone.”  
  
She was right. It made sense. But who could I get to help me? Mom? Yeah, right. And if not Mom, then there was _nobody_ left in my civilian life I could turn to. And shit, that was depressing.  
  
“Joining New Wave would be a big commitment,” Lightshaft said, still molesting me and being _really_ distracting. “If you have any friends or family you’re close to, talk to them-“  
  
I had started shaking my head. There was no way I could put Mom in that sort of danger. Even if Lady Photon had seemed pretty nice at the market, and in the emails we had sent back and forth.  
  
“Your aesthetics _would_ be a bit at odds with them, anyway,” Lightshaft said.  
  
She stayed silent for a moment, still playing with my breasts. I was getting _really_ turned on. I could feel myself getting damp, moisture leaking out of my folds and into my panties. This was, by far, the most humiliating experience I had ever felt while getting turned on. And I had never been this turned on. _God_, I hoped those two weren’t linked.  
  
Lightshaft slid her fingers forward, running two fingers on either sides of my nipples. I moaned, my veil puffing up as I felt a dull heat run through my body, spreading out from my chest. I was bucking around underneath her, and I couldn’t stop myself.  
  
“After all, what if you fight someone who doesn’t have my virginally pure intentions?” Lightshaft continued, still playing with my breasts. They were starting to get a bit sore, but I didn’t want her to stop, and there was _nowhere_ else I wanted her to touch. “Who knows what could happen to you?”  
  
I squealed as Lightshaft pinched my nipples. My back arched, making Lightshaft rise up even further above me. I could feel arousal leaking out of me, flowing through my already wet panties. Shit, this was, this _was_… I didn’t know what it was.  
  
“The Wards might be a good fit for you,” Lightshaft continued, now massaging my actual breasts instead of just playing with my nipples. “The pay’s an insult, from what I hear, but you do get some college money.” She snorted. “Whether or not you want to go to college.” She loomed over me, her unseen eyes staring down through my visor. “It will be _so_ much harder for us to have these little sessions by ourselves, though.”  
  
I’d thought about the Wards. But the thought of spending time around kids my age was _not_ fun. Especially since the local Wards team was mostly boys. I saw quite of a bit of boys at school. They were generally insensitive jackasses, ready to do anything for a laugh or to get a girl. It would be just like Winslow, only with no chance of me losing myself in the crowd.  
  
“No way,” I said. I realized my hands weren’t actually tied up or anything, but, with Lightshaft holding onto my nipples, I _really_ didn’t want to push her off of me. That was a _very_ good reason to explain why I didn’t do anything. “Too much like school.”  
  
“If you say so,” Lightshaft said, her harmonious voice indicating what she thought of that. “Beyond those two, your options get pretty thin. If you have some non-powered friends, they might be worth bringing into the loop. At the very least, tell them where you’re patrolling, and to call the Protectorate if you don’t send them a text every hour or so.”  
  
Yeah, that was… not going to happen.  
  
“And I think,” Lightshaft said, drawing her hands out from underneath my vest and shirt, “that about covers things. No homework for you tonight, Jaunt.” She reached up and patted the side of my face. “Thanks for humoring an old lady as she talks about what kind of friends you should have.”  
  
I wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer. I just started refastening my costume, as Lightshaft stood up and stretched. The bulge in the crotch of her robes wasn’t really going away.  
  
“And I think it’s time for us to go our separate ways,” Lightshaft said, reaching down and pulling me up. “One way or another, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon, dear.”  
  
She patted the side of my face and strolled towards the service entrance, her every move exuding confidence and good cheer. I stared after her, twitching my shirt back into position. She had a point. About joining with someone. I didn’t know who I could contact, but the thought of getting to beat Lightshaft, even if it was a two on one fight, was so, _so_ tempting.  
  
I took a step after Lightshaft as her glowing robe vanished around the corner. And stopped, moaning as I clutched at the conveyer belt in front of me.  
  
I was _horny_. My nipples were stiff (and a bit sore), my pussy was _throbbing_, and my legs felt like jelly. I took a deep breath, trying to focus. Okay, I was horny. A nice long walk in the rain could cool me off. Yeah, _just_ what I needed. And then when I was back home… maybe.  
  
I slowly, carefully walked out of the magazine headquarters, thinking to turn off the lights and pull the sliding door down as I did so. As a hero, I was supposed to pay attention that sort of thing.  
  
Then I started back up the alley, my legs feeling kind of weak as the rain slowly misted down. It seemed to be letting up. As I walked by Mike’s window, I waved up at it. There wasn’t a light on anymore, but maybe he was still awake.  
  
Turning into the street, I let out a shuddering breath. That had just happened. Lightshaft had just… yeah, she had done that.  
  
And I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to do more, or not to do it at all. Images of the former kept on leaping into my mind, no matter what I did.  
  
Well, the next time I met her, things would turn out differently. They just _had_ to. One way or another, I wasn’t going to let things keep on going like this.


	6. Chapter 6

It was the last day of school. And I couldn’t wait. Neither could anyone else in the building.  
  
There was a constant hum of conversation, rising and falling, but never actually going quiet. In Mr. Dolan’s class, that wasn’t out of the ordinary, since he was pretty crap at keeping control of the students. And at teaching the material. And at, well, doing a whole lot of stuff. But in thirty minutes, it wouldn’t be my problem! It was the last period of the day and soon, the entire school could go burn down for all it would affect me.  
  
I took a look around the room. Obviously, there was no actual learning going on today. (Not that there had been a lot of it most days). Instead, everyone was talking to their friends or taking a nap or surfing on their phones. And, thankfully, all of them were having such a good time that none of them were paying attention to me.  
  
Not even Sophia, who was chatting with some of the minor hanger-ons. I didn’t spend too long looking at her, in case she started looking at me. Sophia didn’t need a reason to get violent. She just needed the thought.  
  
“Will Yolanda Velez, Minh Yen and Tony Zhang please come to the principal’s office?” I glanced at the intercom over the door as it crackled to life. “Will Yolanda Velez, Minh Yen and Tony Zhang Minh Yen please come to the principal’s office?”  
  
Man, that thing had been squawking all day. Always asking for some students to come by to the administration complex. I wondered why. End of the school year paperwork I supposed. Though I couldn’t remember anything like that happening previous years. Maybe somebody had pulled a prank, and the school staff were pulling in suspects to interrogate. Awfully alphabetical way to do it, though.  
  
I glanced over at Tony as he wiggled himself out of his chair. Tony was one of the first names I had heard that I actually recognized. Short, fat kid, who spent most of his time messing around with his tall, skinny friend, Daniel. I had talked to him maybe twice in the last school year. Heck, Mr. Dolan probably hadn’t talked to him much more. And even then, just to tell him to can it and get back to work. It was kind of hard to see him being involved in anything more serious than smoking weed.  
  
I turned my head back around and stared out the window. I was a bit too far to actually see anything out of it except for the gas station sign on the other side of the street and the rest of the city beyond it. But it sure beat staring at the decorations on the wall, most of which were about as old as me. Or looking around the class, in case Sophia saw movement and decided to get rough with me.  
  
I glanced at the clock again. Just another twenty-five minutes. I was almost there.  
  
“Hey!” I, and almost everyone else in the class, turned to look at the girl who had spoken up. “There’s a bunch of cop cars pulling up!”  
  
Everyone in the class, including me and Mr. Dolan, got up and went over to the windows. A high-pitched buzz of conversation broke out.  
  
I was near enough to the windows to actually be one of the first ones to arrive. I looked down at the street a story below us. Sure enough, a whole _armada_ of cop cars and trucks were pulling up in front of Winslow. The first few were in BBPD colors, but I couldn’t recognize the later ones.  
  
What the _hell_ was going on? A bunch of people around me were asking the same thing, talking over each other as a horde of cops in a couple different varieties of uniform poured out onto the thin green strip of lawn between the school building and the sidewalk. They started heading towards the doors, but none of them had their guns drawn.  
  
Seriously, what the hell? Nothing like this had _ever_ happened at Winslow, and three different students had gotten stabbed over the school year. It looked like a good chunk of the city’s police were here, and there were all the strange trucks and officers. And there was nothing coming over the intercom.  
  
“You think it’s a cape thing?” The girl next to me asked, not really looking at me as she craned her head to look at the last few cops vanishing into the school. I wasn’t sure if she even knew she was talking to _me_, instead of just someone there.  
  
It… couldn’t be a cape thing, right? They couldn’t be coming for _me_, and I didn’t see how there could possibly be two capes at Winslow. And even if there was one, why were there so many officers, and so little noise? The cop convoy didn’t even have their lights and sirens going. And even though there were a couple of big SWAT vans, I hadn’t seen any in black with assault rifles jumping out of the back of them.  
  
“Hey, Teach!” A boy shouted, his voice carrying through the chatter. “What’s up?”  
  
I, and a bunch of other students, turned to look at Mr. Dolan. He just shook his head and shrugged. Helpful as always.  
  
“Look there!” There was another shout, and something wrapped against the glass. “They’re coming back out!”  
  
So quickly? I frowned, angling my head to get as good of a view as I could at the entrance. Sure enough, there were some blue uniforms heading out the double doors. And behind them-  
  
A long line of people in handcuffs. No, not people. _Students_. My jaw dropped open as I saw the cops grabbing at the confused teens and hustling them along. I couldn’t hear anything through the noise of the class and the windows, but some of the cops were opening their mouths pretty widely.  
  
“Hey, hey! That’s Tony!” I glanced over at Daniel. He was pointing over the heads of the crowd.  
  
I followed his finger, and, sure enough, it was Tony. Handcuffed, just like the rest, stumbling as an officer planted a hand on the middle of his back and shoved him forward, making him stumble. He looked like he didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on.  
  
I felt the same way. What on _earth_ was going on? There were almost a hundred students getting herded out of the school, and loaded up into the vans. None of this made a lick of sense.  
  
I looked at the line of students, most of them looking blank or afraid. A few of them, the ones I had always thought were in the ABB, were protesting and snarling at the cops, though with their hands cuffed behind them, they couldn’t actually _do_ anything. ABB… but not anyone from the Empire 88.  
  
And it was _really_ easy to tell that there weren’t any skinheads in the line, because everyone I could see was either Asian or Hispanic. I didn’t even see any black people.  
  
I looked around the room. Sure enough, there wasn’t anyone in the room besides white and black kids. I had a feeling that the same went for every other class in the school. But _why_? What was the point of all of this?  
  
My gaze fell once more on Sophia. I felt my lip curl backwards in a sneer as I watched her. She was _texting_, her fingers flying over her phone as she typed. I hadn’t thought my opinion of her could get any lower, but _Christ_. Using social media or whatever when her classmates were led away in handcuffs? What the fuck was wrong with her? What could she possibly be doing that was more important then trying to figure this out?  
  
Shaking my head, I looked back outside. There was a small group of girls, huddling close to each other and crying. I didn’t recognize them. I watched as they were herded into a van, and the doors swung shut behind them.  
  
The cops were piling back into their vehicles as well, and I realized that a hundred or so students had been escorted from the school and tossed into vans in less than ten minutes. It was almost impressive, if you thought that this was a good thing. I side-eyed a girl who had worn something with black and red on it every single day of the school year. Yeah, I bet that there _were_ some people here who thought that this was a good thing, even if they probably didn’t know what was going on anymore than I did.  
  
“Attention all students,” the intercom buzzed to life. I could only barely hear it over the sounds of everyone talking to everyone else. “Remain inside your classrooms and listen to your teachers! School is still in session, and you are still under our care! Do not attempt to interfere with the legitimate operations of the legal authorities.”  
  
“Back to your seats, everyone,” Mr. Dolan said, finally spurred into action by the intercom. His reedy voice barely carried over the crowd. “Everyone sit down! I’m sure there’s a good reason for all of this, and it shouldn’t affect you!”  
  
Some of the students drifted back to their seats, or at least away from the windows. I kept on watching as the last of the police officers started up their cars and began pulling away. They still didn’t turn on their lights or sirens.  
  
I had thought the last day of school would be as boring in general and as awful in the specific as it ever was. But this was something I was never going to forget about.

*******

“… Bay Police Department was happy to assist the federal government in their cleanup of our schools,” the police commissioner said, looking into the camera. “Thanks to their generous offer of holding the foreign gang members we arrested, our schools will be safer than they have at anytime in the past three years.”  
  
The remote was barely held in my hand anymore as I sat on the couch, watching the TV. I’d felt like I’d slipped into Bizarro-land, watching the commissioner talk, his pale skin glistening underneath the lights. Was he lying? Did he not know the truth? Did he not care?  
  
“Of course we did our due diligence,” he said, answering some muffled question I hadn’t properly heard. “Anyone who was able to present a birth certificate when questioned was released immediately.”  
  
I jumped as my phone rang. For a few seconds, my heart was beating like a drum. Then, grumbling to myself, I pulled it out of my pocket and flipped it open. Mom.  
  
“Hi, Mom,” I said, putting the phone up to my ear and muting the TV.  
  
“Taylor!” Mom said, her voice loud and filled with worry. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said, standing up and starting to pace back and forth in the small living room. “I’m fine.”  
  
“Oh thank god,” Mom said. I could picture her wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. “I just saw the news. I was worried you’d been grabbed to.”  
  
“No, I never even got called down to the office,” I said, shaking my head for all the good it would do. “I’m here at home, watching the news.”  
  
“Alright,” Mom said, suddenly sounding very tired. “Good. Listen, Taylor, please, _please_ stay safe, okay? I don’t know what’s happening. The news, it’s just not making sense. I don’t know what could happen. Just… stay home, alright? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”  
  
“Okay,” I said, glancing at the TV. The commissioner was still talking, though with the sound muted I had no idea what he was saying. “Uh, you stay safe too, okay?”  
  
“Always,” Mom said. “I’ll be back home soon.”  
  
“Okay. Bye.”  
  
I hung up, wondering what I was supposed to do now. School was over, hip hip hooray. And now… I had no idea. Keep on being a hero, I supposed.  
  
I sat back down on the couch and looked at the TV. Someone else, a tall, white guy in a suit, had taken the podium. I saw the name _Vice Director James Kennick_ crawling across the bottom of the screen as I demuted the TV.  
  
“-interests of national security, I can’t tell you where the foreign gang members who have plagued this fair city are being kept. But rest assured, they are being treated with all the dignity and care benefitting our great country,” he said in a deep, confident voice.  
  
I glanced out the window at the short driveway, wondering how soon _soon_ for Mom was. Right now, outside, everything looked calm and peaceful. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Even when I got up and went to the window, craning my head to look out over a good slice of Brocton Bay, it just seemed like a nice early-summer day.  
  
“The Immigration and Refugee Agency will be doing everything in its power to send these young criminals back to their native countries,” Director Kennick said, his voice coming out of the TV right next to me. “It’s their fault they sent these violent thugs to our shores, and now they have to take responsibility.”  
  
I was feeling on edge. Like I had to get out there and _do_ something. Do something as Jaunt, probably. It was like there were ants underneath my skin, driving me to act. But I couldn’t leave now. Mom had sounded really scared when she called me, and what would that do to her if she came home to an empty house and a lying note?  
  
Ugh, think Taylor, think. Okay, _tonight_. I’d go out tonight. It would be risky, with Mom home, but what the hell. I’d go out, and maybe a fight or a patrol or something would help me deal with this sense of burning… whatever the hell I was feeling that made me feel like a tight bundle of energy.  
  
It would be good to go out there and do some good.


	7. Chapter 7

  
I’d feel a lot more guilty over this if I was sneaking out with Mom in the house. Because, you know, climbing out a window to avoid getting caught really did make it seem like the wrong thing to do. But just stepping out of the back door with my Jaunt costume already on, leaving behind a dark, empty house? That was perfectly alright.  
  
So even though I’d be about to suggest watching a movie with Mom when she got a call, I was still pretty glad things had ended up this way. I’d waited for five whole minutes after her car vanished down the street, off to some kind of meeting about what to do over the roundup before I started rooting around in the basement for the duffel bag I was keeping my vest and costume and stuff in.  
  
And now I was deep in the heart of the city, watching the bus vanish down the street, the red lights on the rear glowing in the dark. I took a deep breath, and looked around for a convenient spot to change. There.  
  
A minute later, I was stepping out of the alley, feeling the armored vest pressing down on my shoulders, and the veil brushing against my face. I was ready to go out and do some _good_. I didn’t know what kind of good I would be doing, but in a city like Brocton Bay, it couldn’t be _too_ hard to find someone or something.  
  
And around here, it was probably going to be the Empire 88, though it was always possible I’d run into the ABB or Coil’s goons or whoever staging a raid. Well, whatever happened, I was going to go out and help the innocent.  
  
The streets were more crowded than I was used to. Not like it would be during the day, or even over the weekend. But I still passed by people. People who tended to give me some pretty funny looks, I had to admit. But nobody stopped me, not to ask me what I was doing, to ask me to take a photo with them, nothing. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I mean, obviously I wasn’t doing this to be famous, and I hadn’t done much yet to _deserve_ to be famous, but…  
  
I shook my head back and forth. I could think about that sort of thing later. For now, being a hero.  
  
And I could probably do that better in the alleys than the lit, populated streets. I ducked into the nearest alleyway, my boots making ripples in a small stream of… something that was running down the center of it. I looked from side to side, not seeing a whole lot. Full dumpsters, empty alcoves, none of the suspicious yet conveniently located drug dealers those awful PSAs assured me were hanging out on every street corner, ice cream shop and school bus.  
  
I kept on walking, before coming to a spot where two alleys met. I looked up and down them. And at one end, I could hear some shouting and flickering lights. Bingo, some _action_.  
  
I started off towards it at an easy lope, glancing to my sides as I did so. I had started out near the fringes of the high-tech part of the city, where there were still jobs and money. But now I was getting deeper into the older, poorer part, where the jobs had depended on cargoes from ships that weren’t coming in any more. A lot of built-up, run-down property, and not a lot of people living in them.  
  
I slowed down as I got closer to the end of the alley. I could get a better view of what was happening now. There were some pretty strongly built guys running back and forth and shouting something I couldn’t really make out. They had guns, pistols clenched in their hands. They were occasionally shooting at something I couldn’t see.  
  
I swallowed. Okay, this was going to be serious. And, I narrowed my eyes, looked like it was the Empire 88. No minorities, and this was their part of town. I took a deep breath and flicked out my baton, letting the shadows billow out from me as I crept closer to them. Luckily, none of them were looking down the alley.  
  
In fact, they were moving away from the mouth of it. And as I got to the end and poked my head around the brick corner, I could see why. They were fighting _Lightshaft_.  
  
My mouth grew dry and I tensed up. The Nazi thugs were shooting at her, although even I could tell that they were pretty bad shots. But still… I watched as Lightshaft dove and wove around the small cul-de-sac the alley opened up into, as she fired off arrow after arrow.  
  
And she wasn’t using the blunt arrows that had knocked me down over and over again. I winced as a neo-Nazi was pinned to the asphalt, shrieking as an arrow sank into his boot. I winced, watching him try and tug at it. But there were still a lot more goons, and they were still firing at Lightshaft, making her duck behind a burned-out van.  
  
For a moment, I tried to think about what I should do. It was Lightshaft verses Neo-Nazis. They were both villains, and did it _really_ matter who won? Then again… Nazis. Fuck Nazis.  
  
I gripped my baton tightly, and looked at the closest thug. Just a single dash, and I would be right by him and his buddy. Stomach tensing, I leaned forward.  
  
And I _dashed_. I felt the shadows boiling off of me as I landed right next to him. He was skinny and shaved bald. He gaped at me, before I swung my baton down _hard_ on his arm. I didn’t, barely, flinch as he squealed like a stuck pig as he dropped his pistol. Instead, I swung down again, using both of my hands as I hit his shoulder. He fell to the concrete, writhing around.  
  
His buddy was turning around, lifting his gun to point at me. I took a long step forward, heart pounding in my ears, and swung my baton again, using every bit of shadows I had. There was a kind of wet _crack_, and the sawed-off shotgun fell to the ground, followed by the skinhead as he piercingly screamed, clutching his hand. His fingers- fuck, had I really just done that? His fingers were bending the wrong way, every single one of them.  
  
No time to look. There were more E88 goons around. My heart was pounding in my ears, and my body felt like it was going to _explode_ as I looked around. Time seemed to be slowing down to a crawl, as I started running towards the nearest thug. I could feel my shadows forming around me, reaching outwards, flickers of whatever they were filling the air.  
  
He had seen me, and was turning around, pointing his pistol right at my head. It looked _huge_, like I could fit my thumb down the barrel of it. I gulped, and kept myself moving forward. He was still about three yards away, when I _dashed_, already swinging my baton upwards.  
  
The gunshot sounded like a bomb going off. I had heard plenty of gunshots, living in Brockton Bay, but never any that were so close to me. I flinched, wondering if I _had_ been shot. But since my arm was still swinging upward, it didn’t matter.  
  
I caught the man on the chin. He went backwards, almost turning over himself as I poured every last bit of strength I had into the blow. His pistol went flying off into the gloom.  
  
I patted myself down, trying to find out if I had been shot. The bang had been so _loud_, and the muzzle had been pointed right at me.  
  
“You idiot!” I heard from the other side of the fight. “Get down or keep moving!”  
  
I turned to look, and saw Lightshaft looking at me. It was impossible to see her expression, but she sounded madder than I had ever heard her before.  
  
And she was right. I started running again, not even going _towards_ anywhere, just _going_. I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid.  
  
The number of thugs were running low, I realized, looking around as I dashed to my left, putting me in the shadow of an overhang. There were just a few left still on their feet. And one of them was running away.  
  
Or he was, before a glowing arrow hit him in the back. I gasped, watching him fall. But then I saw the arrow fall away, still glowing white and not red, and sighed in relief as it disintegrated. Then a few more arrows hit him as he lay on the ground. I winced.  
  
But, still, Nazi. I shook my head, and looked around to see who else was still on their feet. There, crouching behind a dumpster and occasionally popping up to fire off a few wild shots. Gritting my teeth, I started running towards his exposed back.  
  
I cannoned into him, bearing him down to the ground. A hit to the ribs, and he curled up around himself moaning. I kicked the gun underneath the dumpster and straightened up, head moving like it was on a swivel, my heart pounding in my chest.  
  
It was over. Holy shit, it was over. There were a ton of Nazi thugs laying on the ground, moaning groaning, a few of them screaming as arrows still protruded from their limbs. And there was Lightshaft, hopping off of the loading dock she had been on and coming towards me, putting her bow on her back.  
  
“Today _is_ full of surprises, isn’t it?” She asked as she got closer. I kept a firm grip on my baton. “Though I’m starting to think I should just email you my schedule, so it stops being such a surprise when you turn up.”  
  
I grunted. Now that the fight was over, I could feel a cold sweat breaking out all over my body. Holy shit. Holy _shit_. I had just gotten in a fight. I had just gotten in a fight with people with _guns_. I could have-!  
  
I bent forward, grabbing my knees and staring at the ground, breathing hard, trying to keep my stomach in place. I could see the glow from Lightshaft getting closer, and drew back a bit. She stopped as I held up a gloved hand.  
  
“Are you okay?” She asked sympathetically. “I wasn’t talking to you!” She snapped at the Nazi I had hit as he started whining.  
  
“I’m, I’m,” I said, swallowing my gorge and straightening back up, “I’m not going to stop now, Lightshaft.” I waved my baton at her.  
  
“That’s the spirit,” Lightshaft said approvingly. “And if you follow me, I know how to hurt the Empire even more.”  
  
“I _meant_,” I started to growl, pouring out as many shadows as I could with her light burning them off.  
  
“That you want to fight me, yes,” Lightshaft said, a note of amusement in her voice. “But tell you what. I came here to have a heart-to-heart about where the E88 was bringing in some goods. If these fine fellows,” she gave the thug next to her a half-hearted kick that missed by a good foot, “interrupted, I’d already be there.” Her hood turned a bit, and I could feel her eyes staring at me. “Come with me, help me burn whatever the shipment is, and when we start to fight, I’ll start in range of your stick.”  
  
She wasn’t that close to me right now. And the thought of getting three wins underneath my belt in a single night was a _really_ nice idea. Especially if one of those wins was against Lightshaft.  
  
“Fine,” I said, pulling my cell phone out of my belt. “Just let me call the cops on these guys.”  
  
“Call them, but don’t wait for them,” Lightshaft said. She turned her upper body to look over them. “They aren’t going anywhere, anyways.”  
  
I nodded, punching numbers on my phone. I couldn’t keep from smiling. I had _done_ it. I had been in a fight and I had _won_ it. I felt like I was on top of the world. If the rest of the night went like this, I was going to have to really celebrate. Hell, go spend my allowance on some fancy, fattening dessert at Lucy’s Ice Cream or something.  
  
A few minutes later, I was still smiling as I followed Lightshaft through back alleys, quickly flitting across streets from time to time. We were sticking on the outskirts of the dead part of town, where there were still a few struggling workshops and the like. We didn’t meet many people, and I was glad for it. Now that the world (or at least the bored lady I’d talked to) knew I was a heroine who fought crime, it wouldn’t really be good if I was seen with Lightshaft.  
  
It was only twenty minutes’ walk or so to get to a boarded up building. Lightshaft tried the door, and seemed pretty surprised when it was unlocked. I smiled as I stepped in behind her. It was some old machine shop, with a few very dusty, very large pieces of equipment still in place and not much else. Certainly nothing that looked like the E88 would be interested in. I said as much.  
  
“That’s because this isn’t the place,” Lightshaft said. “Quiet now. Follow me.”  
  
I quirked an eyebrow and followed her, moving through the shop, into the small warren of just as dusty back rooms. Lightshaft slid up to a boarded up window, and pressed her head against it before leaning back.  
  
“There,” she said, pointing towards the window. “They’ll be coming in through there.”  
  
I gave her a glance as I looked through a window a yard or so away. Sure enough the building opposite the small loading area, well, it looked like crap, somewhere I’d never go in on my own. But it looked like it still saw a bit of use. Nobody was there, though. Just two banged-up cars and a covered truck parked outside.  
  
“They’ll arrive in,” Lightshaft said, turning to look at me, “maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. Then they’ll start divvying up the cargo for wherever they’re bound.”  
  
“What are they bringing in?” I asked, leaning against the boarded up window.  
  
“No idea,” Lightshaft said with a shrug. “My, ah, informant grew some backbone when his friends arrived.”  
  
Couldn’t have it too easy, I supposed. So now we would just have to wait. Me and Lightshaft.  
  
“Thank you for coming along on this, by the way,” Lightshaft said, leaning against a window as well. “Like I said last time, it’s nice to have someone watching your back.”  
  
“You trust me to watch out for you?” I asked, feeling kind of surprised.  
  
“A cute little puppy like you? Of course,” Lightshaft said. She laughed as my reaction carried well even though my visor and veil. “No, don’t look like that,” as if she could see my face anymore than I could see hers. “You’re quite the adorable angry puppy, barking furiously while waving your tail.”  
  
I folded my arms underneath my chest, trying to look intimidating instead of sulking. I was _not_ ineffective.  
  
“And I don’t enjoy this,” I said, actually speaking the second half of my thought.  
  
“Oh really?” Lightshaft said, taking a long step towards, her light making the smoke boil off of me. “You say that, even when I felt those stiff little nubs pressing against my fingers last time?”  
  
I blushed red, thinking of how it had felt to have Lightshaft touching me. How it had felt far better than touching myself _ever_ had. I still shook my head back and forth.  
  
“Come now, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, her voice low and harmonious as she took another step towards me, her robes actually brushing against my legs. “You’re a hero. A _good_ hero, one whose career I’m looking forward to following. And you’re also a submissive. There’s nothing wrong with being either of those. Or both.” She rested a hand on my shoulder. I tensed up, but she didn’t actually _do_ anything. “You’re _you_, Jaunt. And you’re a good person.”  
  
It felt _far_ better than it should to have Lightshaft praising me like this. I wasn’t even certain how sincere she was being, and it still felt nice to have her talk to me.  
  
“I’m not, not just some doll to play with,” I said, the words spilling from my lips as soon as I thought them. “I can do the same to you?” What did that even _mean_? Then my mind supplied me with an answer, and I went red at the thought.  
  
“Really?” Lightshaft _cooed_, running her hand down my arm. “I’m very glad to hear that, Jaunt.” She looked down at her body. I looked down as well, and saw a by-now familiar bulge in her crotch. “Very glad.”  
  
I licked my lips. The thought came to me of calling her a pervert, but that accusation was made a bit difficult by how I had thought the exact same thing. And, well… being so close to Lightshaft was making it hard to think. Being around someone who was interested in me, _sexually_, how could I keep a straight head on when something so unprecedented was happening?  
  
I took half a step forward, until I was almost pressed up against Lightshaft. My hand slid down between us and came to rest against her crotch. I could _feel_ something hard there. A firm cylinder, pressing against my hand.  
  
I swallowed, and wrapped my hand around it. Lightshaft made a noise that sent shivers down my spine. Even this close, I still couldn’t make out more than the vaguest outlines of her upper face. But she had to be enjoying this.  
  
And I… I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about this. It was… I mean… I was stroking another woman’s dick! Holy shit!  
  
Well, one thing I could do was keep on stroking. It wasn’t actually that bad. Different from masturbating, obviously, but it was the same general idea. Up and down, up and down.  
  
After a few minutes, Lightshaft stopped me. She lay a comforting hand on my shoulder. Her hand brushed against mine for a few seconds, and then her cock was _properly_ revealed, appearing out from between her robes.  
  
I looked down at it and swallowed. The back of my hand was brushing against it. It was... okay, I wasn't in the right frame of mind to guess how long it _really_ was. But it looked _huge_. And hard. Very hard. I shivered before wrapping my hand around it again.  
  
It was just that I was doing it to Lightshaft. _Why_ was I doing it to her? I was supposed to be fighting her. And even if there was a good reason we weren’t fighting now, in the future, I should still be trying to arrest her. And touching her like this… it was going to make it hard to keep my head on straight, I could tell already.  
  
But there was just something that felt so _nice_ about stroking Lightshaft’s penis. It wasn’t the actual, physical motion. But making another person feel good, _that_ was sending a warm tingle through my body.  
  
Some parts more than others. I flushed as I realized I was turned on. Not _very_ turned on, only just enough to know I was.  
  
I kept on stroking, wondering how long Lightshaft was going to last for. I was doing a good job, right? She was enjoying my touch, obviously. The villain was enjoying a hero giving her a handjob. But it still felt so nice, I couldn’t really work up a sense of outrage over it.  
  
“I’m going to cum,” Lightshaft calmly announced.  
  
I blinked, looking at her. Then, underneath my visor, my eyes got wide. I quickly twitched her cock off to the side, pointing at the empty floor. I still kept on stroking, even as my cheeks heated up.  
  
Lightshaft let out a deep sigh of relief. Her penis twitched in my hand, and I watched, blushing hard but not even thinking of looking away. This was the first time… it was a lot of first times. The first time someone had cum because of me, the first time I had ever seen semen, all kinds of things.  
  
Lightshaft happily moaned as she came, her shaft pulsing as she shot three long strands of cum out, onto the floor. I looked back at her. There was this kind of general air of relief and happiness to her, even through the full-body robes and hood she wore. And it was because of me.  
  
That was a very interesting thought, one I would need to examine later. But now… okay, what _did_ you do after you gave your target a handjob in an abandoned building? I glanced at Lightshaft, wondering if she had any ideas.  
  
“Thank you, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, lightly brushing my arm with her hand. “That was _wonderful_.” She adjusted her robes, tucking herself back in. “What a wonderful way to pass the time, don’t you agree?”  
  
“Yeah,” I said, blushing and staring through the boarded-up window.  
  
“If you would like me to return the favor…” Lightshaft said, stopping as I shook my head. That would just be too much. “Then we can wait here, then.”  
  
That sounded like it was for the best. I stepped back a bit and looked away, waiting for my pounding heart to settle down and for the blush to die away. And for the arousal I was feeling to die away, too. Luckily, there wasn’t too much of _that_ to worry about.  
  
I looked up as headlights lanced through the windows, shining against the far wall before the delivery truck they belonged to swung to a halt next to the parked cars. I could see some logo of a knife, fork and plate on the side, but the actual name of whoever owned the truck was too elaborate for me to make out.  
  
And it didn’t matter, either. I followed Lightshaft as she kicked the door down, hanging back enough to let my shadows grow. And when she took a long step to the side, leaving me a clear shot between me and the truck, I spent them, dashing across the intervening space in an instant.  
  
The truck hadn’t even been turned off yet. In the side mirror, I could see the man driving it blink as he saw me running up along the side of the truck. I didn’t wait to see what he would do. Instead, using every last wisp of my shadows, I reached forward and grabbed the door latch.  
  
And I _yanked_, using not just my parahuman ability, but my (meager) actual strength as well. There was a grind of metal, and the door popped open, swinging so hard the side mirror mounted on it crunched as it hit the chassis of the truck.  
  
“Holy shi-ug!”  
  
The man’s cry was cut off as a gleaming arrow hit him in the stomach. I reached forward and gave him a yank. He was wearing a seatbelt, and I didn’t have many shadows up yet, so it just disorientated him a bit more as he retched, cradling his stomach.  
  
His partner, though, hadn’t had a thing done to him. And he wasn’t going to let anything happen to himself, either. He practically fell out of the passenger-side door as he pushed it open. I could hear running feet along the far side of the van, but I didn’t go after him. Not with this guy still up close in my face.  
  
I whacked his arm with my baton, and my other, fumbling hand, managed to find the release for his seat belt. I pulled again, and he came falling out of the truck, laying on the ground and whimpering. He hadn’t even tried to punch me. _This_ was one of the foot soldiers of Der Glorious Aryan Race?  
  
I pulled out the plastic tie-zips I had in a pouch, and cuffed him. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my surroundings growing brighter, and feel my shadows start to boil away. I stood up and turned to face Lightshaft.  
  
“A masterful maneuver,” she said, nodding in appreciation. “And you even got a prize.” I thought she was smiling underneath her hood. “And shall we see what kind of fish we landed?”  
  
I nodded, and walked around to the rear of the truck. The driver’s friend was long gone, but I had a feeling he wasn’t going to stop running until he got home. He certainly wouldn’t be calling the cops. I was going to have plenty of time to satisfy my curiosity and then arrest Lightshaft.  
  
I grunted as I pulled the door open, hearing it squeak on the rollers. I stared inside, nose wrinkling under my visor at a sour smell. What was…  
  
I gasped as I stared into the back of the truck. There were half a dozen Asian women handcuffed to a rail running overhead. They were all kind of pretty, and looked like they were all in their late teens or early twenties. All of them had flinched away from the door opening, and all of them had tape slapped over their mouths, muffling their whimpers as they stared at me in naked, abject fear.  
  
This wasn’t a drug bust. This wasn’t a gun run. This was sexual slavery.  
  
What was I supposed to do about this?


	8. Chapter 8

**A Change In Priorities Chapter Eight**

  
I stepped into the truck, my mouth hanging open behind my veil as I looked at the cowering women. Only one of them was actually looking at me. The rest were pressing their backs against the wall, flinching away from me.  
  
“Oh,” Lightshaft said, looking into the compartment. “Oh dear.”  
  
I looked at her in turn. Her hood was slightly moving back and forth as she looked at the tied-up girls. My mind felt like a spinning top, wobbling this way and that.  
  
“We,” I said, shaking my head, trying to get my thoughts in order, “we need to get them free.”  
  
Then I actually _did_ something about that. I turned to the nearest girl, and pulled my knife out of my belt. She shrieked through the gag and tried to kick at me. But her legs were tied together at the ankles as well, and she couldn’t do a thing.  
  
“Hey, hey,” I said, my voice unsteady as I stared down into her wide eyes. She looked like she was about to start crying. “I’m trying to help you.”  
  
With the duct tape over her mouth, I wasn’t sure if she really understood what I was saying. But the plastic cords binding her hands together were in easy view, and she couldn’t move her wrists around that much. I started sawing at the zip ties, and soon they parted. Then I bent down and did the same for the ties around her ankles.  
  
The girl sagged to the ground, and tore at the duct tape covering her mouth. I winced at the tearing sound, and then she was scrambling away from me, on her hands and knees, towards the open loading door. She stopped as she saw Lightshaft, head snapping between the two of us like a deer caught between two wolves. What had _happened_ to this girl? No, never mind, I didn’t want to know.  
  
Lightshaft took several long steps back, putting a few yards of distance between her and the back of the truck. The girl relaxed a bit, and squirmed out, going out of sight of me.  
  
I looked down, and realized one reason she might be so scared. Smoke was _boiling_ off of my body, in thick, choking waves. I stared down at my arms, seeing the roiling, curling shadows coming up through my sleeves. I must look like some shadow demon.  
  
I slowly, slowly forced the smoke to die down, to not be billowing out from my body in a thick cloud. I sure wasn’t going to spend it on a blow or a dash or something. Not in front of these poor girls.  
  
As the smoke gradually receded, I started cutting the other girls free. They handled it better than the first one did, and the one I had noticed earlier barely seemed freaked out at all by the time I got to her. With a final grunt of effort, my blade cut through her ties. I helped her up, and led her out of the truck.  
  
The rest of the girls were huddled in twos and threes across the parking lot, not really saying anything. I walked over to Lightshaft, who had made herself busy tying the groaning truck driver to the bumper of one of the cars.  
  
“Listen,” I said, “I’m going to call the cops. They can actually, you know,” I waved a hand at the group of girls and the driver and _everything_, “handle this, right?”  
  
“Possibly,” Lightshaft said, straightening up. “Might want to try the Protectorate instead of the police.”  
  
“Police?”  
  
I looked up. One of the girls, the more confidant one, had looked up at us. Her eyes were wide. “No, no police.”  
  
“Why not?” I asked, starting towards her, frowning under my mask.  
  
“The police, they,” she took a deep breath and started again. “The police, they put me here.”  
  
“What?” I was in front of her now, Lightshaft standing off to my side. “What do you mean.”  
  
“I was driving, a month, month and a half ago,” she said in a thick accent. Understandable, just _thick_. “Police pull me over, and my green card was expired. They arrested me, I spend a month and a half in different jail cells, and then…” she trailed off and waved at the truck behind her. “The guards get me out of bed and bring me down. Then I see that man,” she pointed at the driver behind us. “And all these girls.” She shivered and stopped talking, looking off to the side and hugging her arm.  
  
“It’s okay,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “I can guess the rest.” I paused. “Um, I’m Jaunt, and this is Lightshaft. What’s your name?”  
  
“Hlaing,” she said. “Hlaing Myint.” She looked at me. “Are you… superheroes?”  
  
“Yes.” “No.”  
  
I glared at Lighthshaft as Hlaing looked at us in confusion. I stepped closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. I smiled underneath my veil, for all the good it would do.  
  
“Okay, Hlaing, you were in jail?”  
  
“Yes,” she said. “But not a regular jail. Everyone there, we were all arrested because we weren’t supposed to be here. That’s what the guards told us.” There was a pretty ugly look on her face. “Whenever we asked for something, or protested, they’d…” she trailed off.  
  
“Ah,” Lightshaft said. “So it wasn’t the BBPD. It was the IRA.” She snorted. “They’re even scummier than I thought, and I thought they were bastards to start with.”  
  
My mind struggled with the acronyms for a minute. It had been a _long_ day. Right, these girls had been held by the federal government, not the city’s police.  
  
“Then shouldn’t it be okay to call the police?” I asked. “Since they weren’t the ones who captured them?”  
  
“No,” Hlaing said quickly, “the city cops were the ones who arrested me in the first place.” She looked around. “What city is this?”  
  
“Brockton Bay,” Lightshaft answered. “And if we turn these girls over to the cops, then _they’ll_ turn them over to the IRA again. For ‘escaping arrest’.” She tapped her fingers against her opposite arm. “But I’m taking them home with- hey!”  
  
Hlaing had sagged, drooping like a wilting flower as she buried her head in her hands. I reached out and took her shoulder, trying to look at her face.  
  
“Brockton Bay?” She asked, kind of mangling ‘Brockton’. “But that’s-. My _family_.” She looked up at me, blinking rapidly as her eyes glimmered. “Where am I going to _go_?”  
  
That was a good question. If I wanted to push for the cops, I was going to need to be a lot more silver-tongued than I was feeling to talk Lightshaft and Hlaing into it. The Protectorate might have the same problem. _I_ wasn’t going to take all these girls home for the night anymore than Lightshaft was. I didn’t have the money for a hotel, even for _me_.  
  
Then inspiration struck. I dug into my pocket, grabbing at my wallet. I started flipping through it, before finally pulling out a kind of tattered card. I waved it back and forth.  
  
“We can call this lady,” I said, giving the card to Hlaing. “She’s part of some Asian-American advocacy group. She’s sure to have an idea.”  
  
“Who?” Lightshaft asked, stepping closer and craning her head to look.  
  
“Rei Tendo,” I said. “I met her a while ago, and she said to call if I ever needed anything.” I nodded. “And there’s nothing she’s a better fit for, right?”  
  
“I’ve never heard of her,” Lightshaft said with a shrug. “But it can’t hurt.”  
  
I glanced at Hlaing. She gave a quick nod and handed the card back to me. I dug my phone out of a different pocket, and started dialing. After the first few rings, I started to wonder if this was her work number, and if she was still at work at oh god’o clock.  
  
Then I pulled the phone away from my ear, mouthing one of the better cursewords I knew as a wave of sound impaled my ear like a railroad spike. After a second I gingerly put the phone back, able to actually hear a feminine voice now.  
  
“-is th-s?”  
  
“Miss Tendo?” I asked, speaking loudly and blushing a bit as some of the other victims turned their heads. “Can you hear me?”  
  
The noise level was dropping a lot, and I could actually hear her reply.  
  
“Yes, I can. Who’s calling?”  
  
“Um, I’m Jaunt,” I said. “The superheroine from the alley?”  
  
“Oh, yes,” Miss Tendo said warmly. “I remember you. Didn’t get your name, but I remember your face. Your mask.”  
  
“Where _are_ you?” I asked. There was still a _ton_ of noise behind her, like a bunch of people were talking. Every now and then, I heard what sounded like chants, though the actual words were indecipherable.  
  
“I’m at City Hall, with the protestors,” she said, “I’d say there’s a few thousand of us still here.”  
  
Right, I had seen that on the news. There had been a _ton_ of people outside City Hall, and a smaller group outside the BBPD’s HQ. Looking at the faces of some of the parents the camera had been focusing on, I had wondered if it was going to stop being a protest and start being a riot.  
  
“Are you okay?” I asked, wondering what I would do if she said she wasn’t.  
  
“Yes, the cops decided to let us chant ourselves hoarse instead of setting the dogs on us,” Miss Tendo said. “But I don’t think you called to have a chat about that. What’s on your mind?”  
  
I took a deep breath and explained what had been going on tonight as best as I could to Miss Tendo. Well, I explained _some_ of it. I didn’t see a reason to talk about how Lightshaft and I knew each other, or, um, what we had done to pass the time as we waited for the truck to arrive.  
  
Miss Tendo stayed silent for a minute. When she finally spoke, I could actually hear the wry amusement in her voice, even over the chanting of the crowd, and how loudly she was being forced to talk.  
  
“Superheroes really do lead different lives than the rest of us, don’t you?” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can. From here to there,” she said, trailing off in a mutter I could barely make out, “let’s call it forty minutes. You need me to bring anything with me?”  
  
I looked over the group of girls. I had a sinking feeling that I was the youngest person here, and that I was in charge. Then I decided not to think about that until much, _much_ later.  
  
“Um, some snacks?” I said. “Everyone’s still standing, so I don’t think they need a doctor.”  
  
“I keep a jumbo box of energy bars in my car,” Miss Tendo said in an amused voice. “Be there as soon as I can. See you then, Jaunt.”  
  
“Bye,” I lamely said, snapping my cell closed and taking a deep breath.  
  
Wow, that had happened without me feeling any worry or doubt or having second thoughts. And now that the call was over, all of that stuff was flooding my mind with a vengeance. I started puffing out some more shadows to hide how much I was quivering.  
  
“You did a good job, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, a warm tone in her voice as she took a step towards me and undid all of the smoke I had just made. “Communicated concisely and thoroughly, and didn’t let too much conjecture seep into the conversation.”  
  
“Really?” I asked, looking at her. Her body language seemed to back up what she was saying, but it was just so hard to be sure. “You mean that?”  
  
“Yes,” she said, just as I realized I was asking someone I wanted to arrest if I was doing the right thing. “Now, what do you think we should do with these women?”  
  
Hah. I recognized _that_. Mom did that all the time. It meant ‘I already know the answer, but I want to see if you can reach it too’. And I knew how to _respond_ to that, too.  
  
I thought things over for a minute. It was kind of chilly out here, even for summer in the city, now that the sun had set several hours ago. So, get the girls inside. Inside _where_? Couldn’t go too far from here, unless I wanted to call Miss Tendo again. Sending them back inside the truck that had brought them here was _not_ a good idea. I had no idea how hard it would be to break into the other buildings, plus, you know, _hero_. So it seemed that the old hulk Lightshaft and I had been… lurking in was our only option. And _man_, I hoped that none of them would notice the puddle of semen on the floor.  
  
“Let’s get these people inside,” I said, pointing back towards the empty factory. “Maybe we can find some benches or something inside.”  
  
“An excellent plan,” Lightshaft said, nodding in approval. I wasn’t able to stop myself from smiling at that.  
  
It was pretty easy to get the women inside the building, especially with Hlaing having a quiet word and a warm gesture for some of the more nervous ones. I dragged a few benches together and Lightshaft found an old fire blanket that had been left behind. And then there was a long, long period that I spent, wondering what exactly I was doing and if it was the right thing.  
  
Especially if I should have called the heroes. The real heroes. The Protectorate. Well, I wasn’t going to change course now. I was just going to have to see what Miss Tendo would recommend. And then decide what I was going to do about Lightshaft. Because she was a villain, I needed to arrest her, I was _tired_, and today had been a very, very long day already.  
  
There was a nervous rustle from the Asian women, all huddled together, as headlights swept through the window. I looked out, and saw Miss Tendo stepping out of her car. She stopped to look at- oh man, we had left that E88 driver out in the cold. Whatever ended up happening, I was going to have to remember to call the cops on _him_ at least.  
  
I stepped outside, shivering a bit as the wind started to pull at me. Miss Tendo saw me and waved. She had a brightly labeled box in one hand and a ton of papers and clipboards in the other.  
  
“Hello, Jaunt,” she said. “Glad I found the right place. Everyone inside?”  
  
I ushered her inside, and introduced her to everyone. Some of the women seemed a lot more interested in the energy bars then in meeting her, and I wondered how well they had been fed. But Miss Tendo obviously knew what she was doing, and quickly started interviewing each of them. Lightshaft and I were kind of surplus for that, and we ended up standing next to each other.  
  
“Feeling like a hero?” Lightshaft asked, turning her hooded head to glance at me.  
  
I bristled and straightened up. I kept on staring straight ahead as Miss Tendo softly coaxed a woman through something that was making her choke up. I couldn’t hear the details and I honestly didn’t _want_ to.  
  
“Of course I am,” I said. “I stopped the Empire 88 and I rescued a bunch of girls from… bad stuff.”  
  
“Girls the federal government had arrested,” Lightshaft said. “They might be able to arrest you over that.”  
  
I scowled. Why on earth would they? I was a hero, and I was doing heroic things. And even if they did…  
  
“Just because something’s illegal or legal doesn’t mean anything about right and wrong,” I said grumpily, crossing my arms in front of my chest.  
  
“My point of view exactly,” Lightshaft said, patting me on the shoulder. “I’m glad we had this talk.”  
  
I blinked, and then frowned again. Before I could come up with a retort, Miss Tendo stood up and walked over to us.  
  
“I think I’ve got enough information for now,” she said, a small, unamused smile on her face. “Certainly enough to let a reporter friend of mine have the inside scoop.” She glanced at me and smiled, a bit more sincerely. “Sorry, Jaunt, but I had to make sure you were telling the truth before I called him.”  
  
I rolled my eyes and sighed, my breath making the veil flutter. But it hardly seemed like something worth kicking up a fuss over. Instead, I glanced at her phone. She had one of those new, expensive smart phones. Fancy.  
  
“You’re calling him now?” I asked, blinking as I felt the fatigue behind my own eyes. “It’s… very late.”  
  
“For a story like this, he’d crawl out of his own grave,” Miss Tendo said with a laugh. “And then once he’s gotten everything all nicely written down, _then_ we’ll call the police.” She paused for a second. “And let them know that this will be appearing in tomorrow’s paper.”  
  
“It’s going to be one packed paper,” Lightshaft commented. “And if you’re selling this as the new heroine,” her hand landed on my shoulder again and gave it a shake, “rescuing some women from the Empire and a corrupt agency, you probably don’t need me cluttering things up.”  
  
“Huh?” I asked, lagging behind as my head whipped back and forth. “You mean, you’re leaving me? To a reporter?”  
  
That got a laugh out of both of them. I scowled, which might have worked better if either one could have seen any part of my face.  
  
“Don’t worry, Jaunt,” Miss Tendo said, “this time, he’s going to be on your side.” She smiled as Lightshaft started backing away. “A few quotes, a photo, and you’ll be doing just fine.”  
  
“And the girls?” I asked, gesturing at the group of women.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Miss Tendo said, with quite a bit of steel in her voice. “If anyone tries to disappear them, the Voice of the Pacific League will raise ten kinds of hell. And once people read the article and start caring about them, nobody will probably even try.”  
  
I nodded. That made sense. I thought it did. It had been a _long_ day, and was looking to be a long night, too.  
  
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting when I set out from the house today. But now I was going to get interviewed and appear in the paper and probably have to talk to some cops and I had fought some skin-heads and rescued some women from sex slavery.  
  
Man, this was… something all right, but mostly I just wanted to get back home and go to bed. And that wouldn’t be for hours and hours yet, I was sure.  
  
I hoped Mom, somehow, didn’t make it home before me.


	9. Chapter 9

  
I rubbed my eyes as I looked down at the newspaper. It was seven thirty, and I was feeling _tired_. I hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep last night.

And at least Mom hadn’t caught me sneaking back inside. She must have thought that I was asleep, and hadn’t tried to wake me up whenever she got back home herself. So all I had to do was climb in through my opened window, undress and hide my armor and mask, and then go to _bed_. I had fallen asleep almost before I even hit the pillow, and only gotten woken up by Mom asking if everything was alright.

And now here I was, mechanically eating breakfast as I looked down at the paper. I rubbed my eyes, feeling the fatigue lurking inside of my skull. I was kind of hoping that Mom had something to do this morning, just so I could take a nap.

“I’m in an all-campus meeting to determine what we’re going to do,” Mom said. I lifted my eyes to look at her as she sipped from her cup of tea. “But that won’t be until this afternoon. So I’ll be puttering around the house all day.”

Well, that was great. Okay, not that I wanted to get Mom away from me, but… ugh, I was too tired to think my way through this. I look back down at the newspaper.

It was a _big_ paper. A lot more pages in it than was normal. Big surprise, given everything that had happened yesterday. Right on the front page, was a color photo of some stick-thin Latina girl sobbing as she was led out of Arcadia in handcuffs. Every other article on the front page was also related to the mass arrests or the protests. Nothing about me, though.

I scolded myself for that a bit. I wasn’t doing this to get my name in the papers. On the other hand, that interview had taken another hour, counting drive time. It had kept me up _late_, and at least the paper could publish the story about those women.

I flicked through the paper, scanning the headlines. It was on the third page, squished along the edge of the page. I leaned forward, carefully reading everything it had to say.

There wasn’t a _whole_ lot to read, sadly. It was a short article. But at least it covered the important stuff. And it even had a few quotes from ‘the new independent heroine, Jaunt’.

As tired as I was, I still smiled as I saw it. That _really_ stroked my ego. I tried not to feel _too_ pleased over it, but it was pretty hard not to feel glad, seeing how nicely the reporter phrased everything.

Although the IRA was probably feeling a lot less happy about it, even though ‘alleged’ was thrown in front of almost everything as the article talked about the human smuggling ring they were involved in. Well, screw them sideways.

“Something good in the paper?” Mom asked, leaning across the table and craning her head to try and turn the text the right way around.

I glanced at some of the other articles. The E88 and the ABB (completely untouched by the mass arrests) were going at it like cats and dogs. There had been a few dozen people arrested at the protests. There was still no sign of when my classmates would be released.

“News, I guess,” I said, closing the paper and staring at the weather report on the back of it.

I sighed and looked up at Mom. She seemed kind of tired herself. Sometimes she yawned, before automatically taking another drink of tea.

I wondered if I should tell Mom about being Jaunt. This was probably the best chance I was going to get. My name was right there in the paper, with the article calling me a hero. It didn’t even mention that there had been a fight. I could show my powers off, and I wouldn’t have to hide from her anymore.

On the other hand, what if there were downsides I wasn’t seeing? And with how tired I was, I could _easily_ believe that there were some pretty major reasons not to tell Mom that my brain wasn’t able to come up with.

Maybe I should wait on it. Get some sleep during the day, and when Mom came back home from this meeting, I would be well-rested and I’d have considered everything. Yeah, that sounded like a _much_ smarter idea.

I wouldn’t be sleeping all day, though. I was going to call Miss Tendo later today, and see what was happening with those women I rescued. And then… I didn’t know what would happen next. The entire city seemed to be pretty on edge. Maybe I should stay home.

No, that wasn’t what a hero would do. I should go out there and… do something. Something heroic! Something that would hopefully come to me between now and then.

I nodded and looked up at Mom. I was going to make sure I was a daughter she could be proud of. And a heroine the _city_ could be proud of. No matter what.

Of course, I didn’t have to do all of that right now. I could spend some time with Mom, doing normal mother/daughter stuff. Nothing that required a whole lot of activity or critical thinking, obviously. But hey, it was summer break. I was _supposed_ to be lazy!

“Mom?” I asked, looking at her. “Do you want to watch a movie with me?”

“Right now?” Mom asked, looking at the clock above the stove. “It’s pretty early.” She paused for a second. “But who knows when I’m going to get back home. Sure thing, Taylor,” she said, her thin lips parting in a smile. “I’ll go grab a bag of popcorn while you pick a movie.”

I smiled back at her. A few minutes later, we were both sitting on the couch, watching the TV screen flicker to life. With how things were going, and looked like they were going to continue, I wanted something _funny_. And nobody was funnier than the Marx Brothers. _A Night at the Opera_ would be perfect for the two of us to watch. And I should be laughing so hard I should stay awake through the entire thing, too.  


*******

Five hours later, I was still in a good mood as I watched Mom’s car pull away. I knew I was probably about to ruin my mood, but I’d been wondering about this ever since lunch. I sighed and took out my phone. Time to see what had been going on in the hero side of things.

I had already sent a few emails to Lady Photon, but hadn’t heard back from her yet. I imagined she was probably pretty busy. But there was still one other older woman I should talk to. Two of them, possibly, but I wasn’t going to ring up _Lightshaft_ for advice, even if I knew her phone number.

Instead, I dialed Miss Tendo’s number. I started to ring and I sat down on my bed. After a bit, she picked up.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Miss Tendo,” I said, straightening up. “This is Jaunt.”

“Ah, the heroine of the hour,” she said with a chuckle. “Calling to get the news?”

“Yes, please,” I said, feeling a bit self-conscious.

“Well, there’s good news and bad news,” Miss Tendo said. I nodded and picked up a pen, jotting down notes. “One of our lawyers is with the women, and she’s working her ass off, filing a bunch of, oh, injunctions and suits and a variety of other legal terminology.” I nodded, feeling a bit condescended to, but also knowing I wouldn’t have been able to follow any legal terms she dished out. “I’m about seventy percent certain that even if they get arrested again, they won’t get disappeared by the IRA.” Only seventy percent? Was that a high or low percentage for minorities who made the IRA look bad?

“And the bad news?” I asked. “Or is that the bad news?” I winced at how hopeful I sounded when I _knew_ it wasn’t.

“The bad news is that there’s still all those other people locked up in the Bradshaw Detention Facility, on the north side of the city,” Miss Tendo said. “And the IRA isn’t being very helpful with letting the lawyers visit.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, already going over what I would tell Mom.

“Thank you for the offer, but no,” Miss Tendo said. “Right now, I think a properly drafted notice will carry more weight than anything you can do. But if you or your, ah,”

“She’s not my friend,” I quickly said, forestalling whatever she might have been about to say.

“I see,” Miss Tendo said. “Well, if either of you hear about another incident like last night, be sure to let us know as soon as you can.” I nodded. “We’ll take in anyone you find.”

“I don’t want to make a habit of rescuing sex slaves,” I said brightly. Then I realized how that sounded and _winced_. “I mean, I hope that there aren’t enough women who need rescuing,” I said quickly, almost tripping over my tongue. Damn it, Taylor, you aren’t built for banter. “Not that I don’t-.”

“I know what you mean,” Miss Tendo said, laughing. “Don’t worry.”

I slumped down in my seat, my face red. I was going to be thinking of _that_ when I went to sleep tonight.

“Anything else I should know about?” I asked, doodling with the pen.

“Just, good job,” Miss Tendo said. “You saved some women from a horrible fate, and you might have given us the lever we need to crack this branch of the IRA open. Maybe even the entire thing, if we’re lucky.” Her tone was warm and passionate as she talked. “That’s going to be a great start for your heroing career.”

“Thank you, Miss Tendo,” I said, smiling, my earlier embarrassment forgotten. “Really, thank you.”

“Call me if you ever need anything else,” Miss Tendo said. “Even just someone to talk to.”

“Bye,” I said, nodding.

I closed the phone and stared ahead for a bit. I still felt kind of uneasy about doing this through a non-profit instead of talking to the Protectorate or the cops, but Miss Tendo seemed like a good person. I was sure that her group would do a good job of taking care of this.

But that didn’t mean things were over. There was stuff I had to do as well. But what?

I nodded to myself and stared down at the list of jotted notes I had. Couldn’t let Mom find these, and I made another note to hide it with the rest of my stuff later. For now, I sat down and looked at them, thinking over what I should do.

I _didn’t_ want to go out again tonight. I was _tired_. I wanted to go to be early and get some actual, serious sleep in. Tomorrow night, though, maybe I could try my own hand at working over neo-Nazi’s for information. Given the showing I had seen last night, it shouldn’t be _too_ hard to get them to spill their guts.

I leaned back in my chair as I thought things over. Going after the E88 instead of Lightshaft… well, I’d won against the Empire, which was more than could be said for my streak against Lightshaft. I had no idea what I’d turn up. Drugs, probably. Maybe some cash, though I wasn’t sure how I felt about stealing money, even from bad guys.

And maybe I’d get lucky, and meet Lightshaft. And then, obviously try to arrest her. But at least the lose state for fighting her was a lot better than what it would be against the Empire.

But for now? I was going to _relax_. As soon as I figured how I should do that.

And then once that was done, Jaunt would be going to do some good again.


	10. Chapter 10

**A Change In Priorities Chapter Ten**

  
It was a nice night in the bad part of town. And yes, Brockton Bay did have parts that were nasty enough to actually be called the _bad_ part of town. And good parts, but we didn’t have the money to live in them.  
  
I was inside the Empire’s territory again, going on a long loop through a half-abandoned industrial district, pretty close to where I had been two nights ago. There had been two different E88 groups there then, so it made sense that I would find more here.  
  
Of course, it could be a bit tough to know if anyone I saw was actually in the Empire, or if they were just people. Not all of the skinheads were actually skinheads, or had swastikas or HH tattoos where I could see them. Especially from up on the roofs, staring down at people a couple of stories below.  
  
On the _plus_ side, roof hopping was really, really fun. I could use my smoke to push me across the gap between roofs, and run the rest of the way. And there was something really fun about being up high, where I wasn’t supposed to. Even if I didn’t find anything, I thought tonight would still be worth the trip out.  
  
I pushed myself forward, feeling the smoke billowing away from me as I jumped across an alley. My feet touched down and I kicked up a spray of gravel as I trotted across a factory. I glanced down through the skylights and saw that the night shift was beavering away at _something_. Not something I cared about, though, and I kept on going, crossing the entire building in just a few seconds.  
  
I could feel the night breeze pushing my veil against my face as I went. It was a lot breezier up here than I had thought. Come September, I was going to need some heavier clothing if I was going to be running around rooftops.  
  
I stopped at the edge of the roof, looking down at the street. _That_ was too far for me to get across. Time to back down to the ground, and look for another way up. Hopefully without it being _obvious_ that I was looking for a way up to anyone watching. As a heroine, I was supposed to have some effortless grace and dignity, and not be scrambling for the latch on a fire escape.  
  
“Hey, you.”  
  
Ah, the most intimate of greetings. I turned around, wondering where exactly that voice was coming from, and how they had seen me. Then I got my answer.  
  
Glory Girl, the most recognizable teenager in the entire city, set down on the rooftop behind me, her white and gold costume blowing a bit in the wind. A particularly strong gust showed me that she wore black shorts underneath her skirt, which, in hindsight, seemed like a pretty smart idea. She zoomed back up as she set another figure in a white and red hooded costume down, and came to me. That must be her sister, Pan… something or other. A healer. Panacea, that was it.  
  
“Um,” I wittily responded. Hi.”  
  
“Who are you?” Glory Girl asked, crossing her arms underneath her chest and staring down at me, as she hovered a few inches above the roof. I could recognize it as a cheap intimidation tactic, but it still _worked_. “I haven’t seen you around before.”  
  
“I’m Jaunt,” I said, standing as straight as I could. That still only put my eyes level with her neck, but it counted for _something_. “I’m pretty new.”  
  
“Jaunt?” Panacea asked, starting to walk towards us. “I think Lady Photon said something about you. You two met at the Boardwalk?”  
  
“No, the market,” I said. Then I saw the small nod and smile that passed over Glory Girl’s face, and realized this had been a test.  
  
“Nice to meet you,” Glory Girl said, touching down on the roof and extending her hand. A much bigger smile was on her face now. “Always good to see another hero in the game.”  
  
I took her hand, shaking it as I studied her. We were pretty much opposites. She was pretty and I was ugly verging on plain. She had a light costume, I was wearing a black bulletproof vest. She was famous, and I’d only just appeared in the papers yesterday.  
  
Frankly, I had a bad feeling about her. I hoped that I could find something that was actually bad about her, so that I could be justified, instead of just seeing another, prettier Emma. Then I realized what I was thinking and wanted to slap myself.  
  
“We thought you might be Grue, when we first saw you,” Panacea said, stepping up besides her sister and looking at me. I tugged my outfit to try and look better, feeling a bit inadequate next to their custom-made costumes.  
  
“Who’s Grue?” I asked, racking my name for a clue. “And _what’s_ a grue?”  
  
“No idea what it is,” Glory Girl said. “But he’s part of a flash-in-the-pan group of drifters and no-names. He can make black smoke clouds, so when we saw you,” she shrugged, “thought it was worth checking out.”  
  
“Oh,” I said, filing the name away to look up later. “Well, um, I’m not.”  
  
“No, you’re a hero,” Glory Girl said with a big grin. “In the paper yesterday, part of the whole IRA _thing_, right?”  
  
I nodded, smiling underneath the veil. Good, someone else had read the article too.  
  
“That’s some messed-up stuff,” Panacea said, her voice a few degrees quieter than her sister’s. “The two of us are planning to go join the protests outside of the facility tomorrow.”  
  
“Yeah?” I asked, looking between them. There was a certain set to Glory Girl’s features that said she was _really_ looking forward to that. “Good luck.”  
  
“I’m not the one who will be needing luck,” Glory Girl said grimly. “They arrested one of my friends, and she’s still locked up. They do anything to her, they’re all dead men walking.”  
  
“Vicky,” Panacea hissed. Glory Girl flinched and a look of guilt passed over her face.  
  
Huh. Without Panacea’s interjection, I would have thought that was just bravado. _With_ it, well…  
  
It wasn’t my problem, was it? If those big, tough guards with their guns and body armor ended up getting hurt because they did something to a teenage girl, fuck ‘em.  
  
“Right,” Glory Girl said, looking a bit embarrassed and worried for a second. “_Anyway_, you doing good? Got any problems I can help with?”  
  
Did I want to ask for help in beating Lightshaft? No, I really didn’t. For a number of reasons. One of which was the thought of someone else seeing what Lightshaft did to me when I lost. And then I realized that with back-up, maybe I wouldn’t lose, and nothing pervy would happen. But my mind was already made up. I didn’t need any help.  
  
“Thank you for the offer, but no,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just going out for a look around.”  
  
“Good luck,” Glory Girl said. “Should be pretty quiet around here tonight.” She grinned. “The Empire must have thought that the roundup at the schools actually got some gangers. They’re trying to push into the ABB territory, and their getting their asses kicked.”  
  
I nodded. Getting into the middle of a gang war sounded like it was a bit too much for me right now. But it was good to know anyways.  
  
“Are you two headed there?” I asked.  
  
“Nah,” Glory Girl said, shaking her head. “I’m just picking up Panacea from the hospital. Got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, so it’s an early night for me.”  
  
“Okay,” I said, extending a hand to take in the neighborhood in front of me. “I’m staying out for a while longer.” I paused. “Um, it was nice to meet the both of you.”  
  
“Same here,” Glory Girl said, giving me a bright smile. I smiled back a bit at that.  
  
“Yeah, real nice,” Panacea said. I frowned at that, but let it go. The tone was too, well, not-there for me to tell what she was really feeling. “See you around, Jaunt.”  
  
I waved goodbye as Glory Girl picked up her sister again, and took off into the night sky. _Man_, that must be nice. Running around on rooftops was entertaining enough. Actually being able to swoop and soar through the air must be a dream come true.  
  
Well, my sights were a lot lower to the ground. I hopped off the roof and flexed, just before I landed. My shadows billowed around me, and I set off towards the nearest alley and the fire escape. As I did so, my thoughts ran back towards Glory Girl and Panacea. I reviewed everything, making sure I hadn’t embarrassed myself somehow.  
  
They seemed nice. Glory Girl sure was a lot more talkative than her sister. Maybe that was why she was more famous than her sister or her cousins. She liked the camera more.  
  
And now to focus on the Empire. If they were fighting with the ABB, then hopefully that would mean that their operations were undermanned. I just needed to _find_ them. And how hard could it be to find illegal gatherings? I already knew the answer to that, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to give up just because it was hard or took a while.  
  
I spent another half hour looking, and was just about ready to stop looking for the Empire, and start looking for a food stall. Dinner had been three hours ago, and I was starting to get hungry again. Even for street food.  
  
Before I could make up my mind one way or another, the question was taken from me. I could see a moving, steadily glowing light a few blocks away. My heart started pounding in my chest as I stared. I was _certain_ I knew who that was. Lightshaft.  
  
I started dashing across the rooftops, using my shadows to move myself both faster and quieter than I normally could. As I got closer, I saw that it _was_ Lightshaft, walking down the empty street, towards me. I hunched down a bit, and stopped moving. Wait for her to come to me, and _then_ attack. I drew my baton, and squeezed my hand down around it.  
  
Then sighed in disappointment as Lightshaft kicked the door open a few buildings down from me. I saw her storming inside, her bow raised, for a few seconds before she vanished. I could still see her glow coming through the barred windows, though.  
  
Grumbling, I started running across the rooftops to it, glad that the buildings all had flat roofs that were level with each other. It only took a few seconds for me to cross the distance, and then I hopped down onto the street. I glanced at the sign over the door. It was some old shop that sold car parts.  
  
From here, I could see Lightshaft. She was standing deep inside of the store. There wasn’t any sign of anyone else in there with her. But I did glance up the street, and saw someone leaning against the wall, staring away from me. Heh, that lookout would be getting some harsh words soon.  
  
Since Lightshaft had helpfully left the door open, I crept inside, being as quiet as I could. I drew closer and closer to her, keeping the shelves of metal parts in between me and the counter. She was sadly silent, and not talking about her plans where I could hear them.  
  
It didn’t matter. I was still _this_ close to her. I felt my shadows billowing up around me, and swung my baton back and forth, ready for a single, decisive blow.  
  
I came charging around the edge of the shelf, burning my shadows to make myself move as quickly as I could. Lightshaft saw me coming, and flinched backwards, letting the binder she was holding drop to the floor.  
  
I hopped over the counter, swinging my baton down, even as I felt my shadows burning away. I wasn’t going to stop. Not now, not for _anything_.  
  
Lightshaft managed to raise her bow and that took the blow, with a loud cracking sound. I kept on coming, jabbing at her stomach with the baton. She grunted and doubled over. I raised my baton one last time, not quite believing how quickly everything was moving, but not daring to stop and think about it.  
  
And I _still_ got knocked against the counter as Lightshaft cannoned forward, slamming her head into my stomach. I groaned, and brought the baton down on her back at what I already knew was a bad angle. She gasped, but she didn’t do more than that.  
  
Well, she did, her arm whipping out to grapple my wrist, but nothing that I _wanted_ to have happen. I grunted, staring into her hidden eyes as I tried to break her grip, or kick her in the crotch or something. But she was too close to me, and even with the wind knocked out of her, she was still too _strong_.  
  
She banged my hand against the counter twice, before I was forced to let go. I stared up at her face, just inches away from mine, feeling the pain in my wrist. I tried to headbutt her, but she pulled her head to the side, and I didn’t do jack.  
  
And then I was forced to lay there, pinned against the counter in a pretty uncomfortable position, staring up at Lightshaft. I couldn’t see a hint of her face through her glowing mask and hood. I just felt her body pressed up against mine, which, as the adrenaline slowly faded, started to send certain thoughts into my mind.  
  
“Hello again, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, sounding far too amused for me to be happy with. “So good to see you again.”  
  
I grunted, trying to find some leverage to get out of this position and utterly failing. I gave up and slumped against the counter, trying to find a position where the edge of it wouldn’t be digging into my back.  
  
“What are you even doing here?” I asked, looking around the small, dark confines of the shop.  
  
“Trying to find out where the Empire gets some of their weapons,” Lightshaft said. “I think this place is a dead end though. Back to the drawing board,” she said with a sigh. Then her head shifted, and I got the impression she was looking right at me. “And I’m glad, in a way. Now that something _much_ more entertaining has dropped into my lap.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, lying. I could _feel_ her cock getting harder against my thigh. I shifted around, trying to dislodge it. And was uncomfortably aware that I was just providing her a bit more stimulation.  
  
“Oh, I think you do,” Lightshaft said with a girlish giggle. “You know, we worked so _well_ together last time.”  
  
I mean, that _was _true, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t have known about the girls without Lightshaft, and Lightshaft couldn’t have appeared in the papers. And I liked to think I had done my share of the fighting.  
  
“And I wouldn’t mind teaming up again,” Lightshaft said, relaxing her grip on my wrist, and slowly trailing her hand up my arm. “You’re a nice girl, Jaunt. It’s fun to have you around.”  
  
“I’m not entering into a life of crime for you,” I said quickly. And then mentally groaned. Did that sound as cheesy as I thought it did?  
  
“I’m not asking you to,” Lightshaft said, amusement bubbling in her voice. “Just that if a situation like two nights ago happens, we can both do our part in fixing it.”  
  
_That_ didn’t sound like a problem. Heck, that was, in miniature, what the heroes and villains did when the Endbringers attacked, wasn’t it? And fighting slavers was the right thing to do, anytime, anywhere. I nodded, tensing up a bit as Lightshaft rested her gloved hand against my shoulder. Her thumb was stroking the bare skin of my neck, sliding right underneath the veil.  
  
“Sure,” I said. “My number- I’ll go and buy a second phone, and you can have _that_ number, okay?”  
  
“A bit of paranoia is a good idea,” Lightshaft said, still sounding amused. Her thumb was still being _really_ distracting. “I’ll give you my number and you can text me when you get it.” I nodded, trying to get my breathing under control. “And thank you, Jaunt, for agreeing to work with me,” she continued, her voice suddenly purring. “We’re going to do great things together. And _soon_.”  
  
I nodded. The way she had said that…  
  
“Do you know something?” I asked. And then, seeing the obvious quip, continued. “About where to free some more women?”  
  
“Yes,” Lightshaft said, nodding. “Strike where they came from. Attack the prison they’re being held in, and free all of the students and refugees being held there like _cattle_.”  
  
I paused, trying to think over what she was saying. She kind of had a point. Evil thugs were evil thugs, whether they worked for Kaiser or for the federal government. And I couldn’t file a brief or whatever Miss Tendo was doing. But I could swing a baton. It sounded kind of appealing.  
  
“Well,” I said, swallowing as I felt Lightshaft’s hand slide down into my shirt. My skin quivered underneath her touch. It was really distracting. Especially because of how good it felt. “I, think, maybe, ah!” I focused on my breathing. “I’ll think about it,” I said.  
  
“That’s all I can ask for,” Lightshaft said. “And _now_,” she laughed, “why don’t we have some fun?”  
  
My mind flashed towards what kind of fun she could be talking about. I blushed underneath my veil and felt a surge of energy run through my body. Right _here_? In a place neither of us should be?  
  
And anyway, I wasn’t sure I was ready to give something like that up yet! Even though I couldn’t think of anyone besides- nope, not completing that thought!  
  
“J-just your hands, okay?” I asked, staring up at the villain who had overpowered me. Right. Nobody could blame me for what happened once I was defeated.  
  
“You thought I was going to do more than that?” Lightshaft asked. I could _hear_ her eyebrows being raised. “Oh my.”  
  
I turned my head and _intently_ studied the side of the cash register. I could feel Lightshaft’s, well, shaft, pressed against me, digging into my thigh. She seemed to be _really_ hard.  
  
And I was really, well, I was in a certain state as well. My clothes suddenly seemed _really_ confining. Not that I was going to start removing anything!  
  
Lightshaft started using her other hand, running it over the lower half of my body. I gasped, feeling her fingers pressing down against my pants. It felt nice, though not as nice as her hand _inside_ my shirt. I shivered, feeling goosebumps forming all over my body.  
  
Lightshaft shifted her position, pressing herself even more firmly against me. Her hands kept on wandering over me, touching me, making me feel so _good_. It was better than masturbating. A _lot_ better. And she wasn’t even touching me in the same way that I would when I was sitting in front of my computer.  
  
I could feel my hips starting to twitch, pressing themselves against Lightshaft’s hands. Really, really hard before I mastered myself and drew them back. I was feeling really turned on. I was almost ready to start whining as I felt Lightshaft touch me.  
  
I knew I should be telling her to stop. But how could I? Not when I was feeling so good, and she was being so gentle as she held me down. I stared up at her.  
  
“Be sure to tell me if anything feels wrong,” Lightshaft purred. “This is all about making you feel good.”  
  
I nodded. And it was working. I was feeling _really_ good. Part of me wondered if I should return the favor and make Lightshaft feel good, like I had two nights ago. My hand twitched, remembering the strange thrill I had felt, holding onto her cock. But… well, I was feeling so good, I didn’t want to do anything but keep _on_ feeling good. And it would be pretty embarrassing to ask to stroke Lightshaft’s cock.  
  
“It feels nice,” I whispered, not quite able to meet Lightshaft’s unseen gaze. “Please-“ I shivered, “keep going. Just,” I shifted from side to side, “stay above my panties, okay?”  
  
I was pretty certain that was the most embarrassing thing I had said all week. But it still needed to be said. I wasn’t ready for- that. Or even anything too close to that.  
  
“Of course,” Lightshaft said.  
  
And she kept on touching me. And it felt _really_ good. I gasped, feeling her hand pressing down against my wet crotch. The way she was moving her hand back and forth, I could feel my wet panties shifting around, and even slightly sliding into my pussy.  
  
Lightshaft’s upper hand was playing with my breast, her thumb slowly prodding my nipple in a circle while the rest of her hand played with the rest of my boob. I shivered. I didn’t have very big breasts, but right now they were feeling so _sensitive_.  
  
I was feeling sensitive all over, actually. Especially my thighs, my pussy and my boobs. I was going to cum soon from what Lightshaft was doing to me.  
  
Oh man, I was going to _cum_ from getting groped and felt up by a villain. Man, I hoped Lightshaft stayed quiet about this. I didn’t have much a reputation yet, and I didn’t want to get one as, um, whatever the kind of hero who enjoyed getting molested would be called.  
  
I shivered, feeling the arousal boiling to a peak inside of me. I looked away, not quite willing to stare at Lightshaft as she made me cum.  
  
And then I did cum. And it was a _good_ orgasm. I gasped, bucking my hips back and forth, feeling Lightshaft’s gloves on my body. It was amazing, and I could feel my inner walls clenching down as arousal poured out of me. I quivered, and only barely stayed upright.  
  
“Beautiful,” Lightshaft said softly.  
  
I barely listened to her, too focused on how the pleasure was surging around inside of me. It was amazing, and I loved how I felt right now, pinned down underneath Lightshaft, her hands underneath my clothes and her cock pressed against my thigh.  
  
Lightshaft slowly slid her hands back out of my clothes and wrapped me in a hug. She pressed her hooded head against my helmet for a second. I actually enjoyed it. Quite a bit.  
  
Then she stepped back, and twitched her robes back into position. She picked up her bow and patted me on the shoulder.  
  
“It’s always nice to see you, Jaunt,” she said, her voice _very_ smug and happy, “but now it’s time for me to go.” She started around the counter. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”  
  
I didn’t watch her go. Instead, I kept on panting, feeling little after-shocks of pleasure running through my body. Wow. That had been one of the better orgasms I had ever felt. And while I was on (unpaid, unasked for) duty as well. Instead of fighting crime, I had gotten molested by an older woman. And it had felt so good. It was _still_ feeling good.  
  
I sagged against the counter. Okay, I was thinking that this was enough for the night. I just needed for my legs to stop shaking and then I’d go home. And then, maybe tomorrow, go and pick up a new burner phone.  
  
I wasn’t sure if Lightshaft had the right idea about how to help the people locked up. But even if she didn’t, I’d need to be able to talk to her to convince her otherwise.  
  
And if she did? We’d need to plan together.


	11. Chapter 11

**A Change In Priorities Chapter Eleven**

  
I took a swing of water from my bottle and wiped my lips as I looked around. This was kind of fun, though I knew I shouldn’t show it. This was _not_ a humorous situation.  
  
But there was still something about being together with a bunch of people, all pushing for the same goal, that got the blood pumping. An endorphin high was an endorphin high, I supposed.  
  
There was a pretty good crowd out here, in front of the Bradshaw Detention Facility. Quite a lot of Asian and Hispanic people, surprise, surprise. But there were also a few white and black people, waving signs and chanting as we split our attention between the news crews on the other side of the street and the prison guards manning the entrance and peppered along the chain-link fence.  
  
There were some more reporters making their way through the crowd of protesters. I caught a glimpse of them, every now and then, wearing bright yellow vests with some symbol on them. I hadn’t been interviewed yet, the news crews apparently thinking that either grieving families or Glory Girl were worth an interview more than a nerdy teen was.  
  
It was hard to tell how big the crowd was from right in the middle of it. But there had to be at least five hundred people, at the absolute minimum. Maybe a lot more. It was one of the biggest crowds I had ever been in. The only one I could remember that had been bigger was when Dad had taken me to see the Yankees five years ago.  
  
And this crowd was a _lot_ better behaved than a bunch of boozed up sports fans were. There was a _lot_ of chanting, but I hadn’t seen anything thrown at the guards yet. Although a pretty good arm would be needed to get anything other the fences and the tangle of barded wire at the top.  
  
Mom and I were near the main gates of the facility. I was actually standing on one of those concrete bars used as a parking… booth… thingy. From here, and with my extra inches, I could see Glory Girl and Panacea, almost smack in the middle of the crowd. It was a lot easier to see Glory Girl than her sister, because of the way she was flying a few feet above the crowd as she chanted and waved her sign. It had a photo on it and some words, but I hadn’t been able to get a closer look.  
  
I had thought about coming as Jaunt myself. But since Mom had been my source of transportation here, it would have been a _bit_ difficult to explain why I was wearing body armor and a helmet and mask. And it might have given the wrong _mood_ to the protest.  
  
“Free our friends!” I chanted, raising a clenched fist and swinging it back and forth. “Free our friends!”  
  
I was only one of a dozen people chanting half a dozen different chants at any one time. Occasionally, we all mostly managed to rally and chant the same thing, or sing a song (or, in my case, mouth along to the unfamiliar words). And at other times, people fired up a megaphone and either rallied us up or tore a strip out of the blue-clad guards watching us.  
  
I looked around, barely able to my surroundings through the crowd of people. The concentration camp was built next to an industrial park, which did nothing for the view. But it was the weekend, so the smokestacks were qemptyuite and the streets and alleys to the east were dead quiet.  
  
Off on the other side of the road were a small group of counter protesters. All of them were white, most of them were male, and about half of them were waving American flags. Sometimes the reporters went over to talk to them, but mostly they were left alone.  
  
I looked around the rest of the parking lot. A few dozen yards away from me was a van that the protest organizers were handing bottled water out from, as well as talking to each other while studying maps or something.  
  
I glanced up as I heard a chopper circling above us. I glanced up at it. The sun was in my eyes, so I could barely make out a black, hovering shape. But I knew it was the Channel Seven news helicopter. Heh, if I caught the report this evening, maybe I’d be able to spot myself on the tape.  
  
And to my right, an old Hispanic guy, Fidel _something_ was speaking into a loudspeaker. I thought he had a pretty good voice, but the crowd was too noisy and he was too far away for me to catch more than one word in two. He didn’t like what was going on inside the camp anymore than anyone else did, I could get _that_ much.  
  
“How are you handling this, Taylor?” Mom asked, laying a hand on my shoulder as she rested her protest sign on her own shoulder.  
  
“It’s…” I looked around. “I hope we’re doing good.”  
  
“We are,” Mom said, nodding. “Trust me.” She smiled. “Heh, back before you were born, I dragged Danny on half a dozen protests. And they worked. We changed the law, kicked the bastard out, made a difference.” She looked around at the crowds chanting and waving their signs. “And I’m sure that it will happen again here.”  
  
I nodded. I hoped she was right. I looked at the prison. Nobody deserved to be held in a place like that. Especially if the only thing they had done was have the wrong skin color.  
  
I hadn’t been inside, but the looming camp looked bleak and joyless. There were two main buildings, three stories high, connected by a center wing that was a story shorter. And a bunch of outbuildings and minor wings that nestled sullenly inside the double layer of barbed wire fences. They were all a dirty white color, with high, narrow windows that looked out blankly over all of us.  
  
I turned my head as a truck honked. A IRA-marked truck had come up the street towards us, and was halted a few yards away from the outer fringe of protestors. Whoever was behind the wheel was really laying on the horn, though no one seemed the slightest bit inclined to clear out of the way so the truck could enter the gate.  
  
“Disperse!” A guard on the other side of the gate was yelling through a bullhorn. “You are all in an unlawful assembly. Disperse and clear the road!”  
  
Nobody listened to him. Well, plenty of people listened to her, there was a bunch of jeering about the IRA telling people to follow the law. But nobody actually moved. The truck honked again, longer this time, like the driver was pressing his hand down flat on the horn. I winced, covering my ears.  
  
Then the truck started forward, even though there were still dozens of people between it and the gate. My jaw dropped. It was picking up speed, going at ten, fifteen miles an hour.  
  
There were screams as other people saw what was happening. There was a sudden rush of people pressing against me, and my heart started to pound in my chest as I watched the shining blue hood of the truck moving forward.  
  
“Taylor, get back!” Mom shouted in my ear as she pulled me backwards.  
  
I _fell_, and that made the panic rise, my heart rising to my throat, and an acrid taste on my tongue. I _needed_ to get up. I would be trampled if I wasn’t, people’s feet falling all around me as they tried to get out of the way in time.  
  
I grabbed one of them and used him to pull myself off, getting a few light, glancing blows about the head and the shoulders as people pushed past me, their arms swinging. My glasses were knocked askew and I was barely able to keep them on my face.  
  
“Taylor, are you alright?” Mom asked, holding me close and almost shouting directly into my ear.  
  
“I’m fine, Mom,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the truck. I had to speak up over the screams of shock and fear. “I’m just-!”  
  
My eyes widened as I saw someone right in front of the truck suddenly vanish, hidden by the people still trying to get out of the way of the truck. And now I could hear someone screaming in _pain_, even over the sounds of the rest of the crowd.  
  
A wave of fear washed over me. I almost felt like throwing up, and the gorge rose in my throat. I backed up, pressing against Mom. I wasn’t in between the truck and the gate, but, somehow, it still seemed so much more dangerous to be here than when I was fighting the E88.  
  
A blur of white flashed across my vision and slammed into the front grille of the truck. The hood of the truck popped up, and I heard the crashing of metal as it was torn out from the way it was supposed to lie.  
  
I blinked, watching Glory Girl fly back a bit before shooting up and slamming into the windshield, a hundred fragments of glass cascading down onto the hood of the truck along with a knee that slammed the hood shut. I could see a _huge_ dent left in it.  
  
“Holy shit,” I whispered, standing like a statue as I watched.  
  
The driver of the truck was hauled through the windshield, Glory Girl having a tight grip on his collar. Or maybe his neck. Either way, he was pulled right along the hood, before he was slammed into the grille. If either of them were saying anything, I couldn’t hear it over the roar in my ears.  
  
The crowd had cleared out. I realized that I was right on the fringes of it, people watching the superheroine. I lowered my gaze a bit and saw a middle-aged woman half-underneath the truck. Not underneath one of the tires though, thank God. She was thrashing weakling, and I could see her wide, desperate eyes. Her face was starting to pale, and I didn’t _want_ to take a closer look, in case I saw where she was bleeding from.  
  
Glory Girl lifted a fist and punched the IRA agent right in the face. I blinked, seeing a spurt of red appear, running out of his nose. She drew back for another punch and-  
  
“Victoria!”  
  
I blinked, looking at Panacea. She was pushing through the crowd on the opposite side of the access way. Glory Girl turned to look at her, her hand falling to her side, though she kept a tight grip on the bloodied agent.  
  
I felt like my heart was going a million miles a minute. I could barely remember how to breathe as I watched. Panacea rushed over to the truck and ignored the officer, instead kneeling down besides the woman.  
  
I sighed, and looked back at Mom. She was watching the scene as well, a look of intense _fury_ on her face. I had never seen her looking like that before, not once. Her mouth was moving, like she was chewing gum as she stared.  
  
“Drop the officer!” “Hands on your head, down on your knees!”  
  
My head snapped around as the gate rattled open, half a dozen IRA goons on the other side, wearing body armor and carrying rifles. They were already pointed at Glory Girl.  
  
My whole body twitched as I stared. I hadn’t done anything to stop the truck. I hadn’t even _thought_ about doing anything, not until long after Glory Girl had smashed into it. But now-  
  
I dashed forward, putting myself in between the truck and the soldiers or agents or whatever. Guns twitched to follow me, and I swallowed, wondering if they were going to shoot me or not. There was a buzzing in my ears, and I didn’t know if it was from the news chopper or electricity or _what_.  
  
“Taylor!”  
  
The guards were just a few feet away and getting closer. They were yelling, all of them overlapping each other, telling me to get out of the way, get down on my knees, for Glory Girl to surrender, for us all to go home. And they were still walking at me at a face clip, two of the rifles pointed right at me. I felt cold sweat breaking out all over my body as I stared.  
  
“On the ground! On the ground _now_, you-!”  
  
The lead guard swung his rifle at me. I gaped, not really expecting that to happen. Then I was knocked to the asphalt, gasping for air as a hot knot of pain blossomed in my chest. I couldn’t breathe, as I felt my head knock against the grimy road. One of the guards stepped over me, his boot missing my hand by two inches.  
  
“You-!”  
  
I blinked, not sure if I had heard that correctly, or if it had been Mom saying that. It was the best collection of swearing I had ever heard, better than any of Dad’s dockworker friends had ever produced. I looked up, feeling a bit woozy, and saw that the protesters were surging back into the street, Mom in the lead ranks.  
  
Three different pairs of hands helped me up, and I staggered as I got to my feet. I blinked, rubbing my chest. Ow, that still hurt. But not a _bad_ hurt, the kind that made me think I had broken something.  
  
“Taylor!” Mom wrapped me in a hug so tight I almost reconsidered if I had broken anything. Then she pulled her head back and fixed me with a glare so hard I felt like my face had lit on fire. “Don’t you ever do that again!” She darted back in for another rib-creaking hug. “I’m proud of you.”  
  
“T-thanks, Mom,” I said, my head spinning a bit. I looked over my shoulder. “Oh _no_.”  
  
The agents had reached the truck. One of them was having a screaming match with Glory Girl, both of them yelling at the top of their lungs as they tried to stare each other down. The agent was made inhumanly bulky by his armor and helmet, but Glory Girl was flying, staring down at him with a thunderous expression on her face.  
  
And the crowd surrounded them all. I hadn’t thought that the protest was ugly before. It was now. There was maybe a foot of space between the rifle barrels of the guards and the nearest protestor, and they were being showered in venom. People were yelling, their words overlapping so thoroughly I couldn’t make out a single syllable. There were angry expressions on almost every face.  
  
I looked over my shoulder. More guards were assembling, lines of blue underneath black armor trickling in as they poured from barracks and buildings, grouping behind the gates. I swallowed. This looked like it was going to go south in a hurry.  
  
I reached over and grabbed Mom’s hand. Man, I didn’t want to get separated from her. Even though I had powers, shit, I was still just a teenage girl, and I’d never been in a situation like this. I didn’t want to lose track of Mom. Not with how things were teetering on a knife.  
  
At the truck, the agents had grabbed the driver, and were holding him up between two of them. They were still pointing guns at the crowd, who were all still yelling and shaking fists at them. I couldn’t see anything being thrown, though.  
  
The squad of agents formed up into a tight knot, and I swallowed, staring at them. What were they going to do? Right now, these lunatics, armed with rifles, seemed capable of anything.  
  
“Everybody! Everybody, you’ve got to listen!”  
  
Almost every head in the crowd and among the agents, turned. The Latino guy I had noticed before was speaking again, standing on the cab of the protestor’s truck, a big megaphone in his hands.  
  
“Just step aside people!” He said, his enhanced voice cutting through the noise everyone else was making. “We didn’t come here to start a fight. Just let them get back to the gate!”  
  
There was a rumble in the crowd, and then, bit by bit, people started to step back. Man, though, if looks could kill, all seven of the IRA officers would be little piles of ash. They were still pointing their guns at the crowd, and I swallowed, worried that any minute now, I’d hear the bark of bullets.  
  
The crowd sullenly drew back, and I went with them. We weren’t moving that fast, and there were some stragglers that the agents pointed their guns at. But at Fidel’s urging, eventually, there was a clear path between the truck and the gates.  
  
The squad started down the clear corridor, a wall of jeering people on each side. The gate rattled open, and I watched them rejoin their mates. A couple dozen uniforms were on the other side, and I thought I saw grenade launchers in a few hands. Tear gas, I hoped. Shouldn’t the first group have had that instead of rifles?  
  
I sighed, rubbing my chest and wincing. I looked over at the truck. There were already two reporters there, jabbing cameras and microphones into Glory Girl’s, Panacea’s, and the injured woman (upright, but leaning against the crumpled grille of the truck) faces, and more were coming up.  
  
“Are you okay?” Mom asked, giving me another tight hug. “God, I felt my heart stop when that bastard hit you. How are you feeling?”  
  
“I’m _fine_, Mom,” I said, undercutting myself a bit by rubbing the aching spot on my chest. I wondered if it would bruise, but I sure wasn’t checking right here. “Just got the wind knocked out of me. It’s alright.”  
  
“Come on,” Mom said, “let’s get you home.”  
  
She put one arm around me and started leading me back up along the street where we had parked. I saw a few people glancing at me, but nobody said anything, or had enough of an expression on their face for me to tell what they were thinking. Most of them were refocusing their attention on the camp, though I saw a few younger guys climbing up on top of the smashed truck, a flag I didn’t recognize trailing behind them.  
  
Man, were all protests like this?


	12. Chapter 12

  
I idly rubbed my chest as I looked through the morning paper. I was still a bit sore from where I had been hit, but I wasn’t sure if I was _actually_ sore or if I just thought that I should still be sore. Either way, I kept on rubbing through my shirt as I looked down at the paper.  
  
There was a big, glossy, colorful photo of Glory Girl and a crowd of protestors standing on the IRA truck. Most of the article talked about her and the IRA agent, a Captain Logan Pauls. I couldn’t see any mention of me, and I told myself that I didn’t _need_ to see any mention of me. That wasn’t why I had gone to the protest. It still would have been kind of nice.  
  
My gaze wandered over to another article further down the page. Not _everybody_ in the IRA was scum, it seemed. An unnamed whistleblower at the camp had snuck out photos and descriptions of what the people inside were being treated like. The paper, the Brockton Bay Bugle, was keen to remind me, several times over, that this was the first non-press release look into the conditions, since the IRA didn’t want to ‘compromise national security’ by letting reporters inside.  
  
There was a photograph of kids my age crammed together in a cell about the size of my bedroom. I counted at least twenty heads. My gaze went lower down the page, reading the allegations about toothpaste, fucking _toothpaste_, being turned away after charities had donated it because it was deemed a non-essential that had been acquired outside of proper channels. And those were just what I could read without my blood starting to boil. My eyes glanced down to what the IRA spokesman had to say. He was _way_ more concerned with denouncing the whistleblower who had both lied through his teeth about the conditions of the camp and endangered classified details.  
  
I looked over the photos again, and felt sick. I had been _just_ outside the walls, not even fifty yards away. And I had just walked away, back to Mom’s car, and we had gone home and had a nice, filling dinner and then I had spent the rest of the evening lounging around reading, while these people, people like Hlaing were being used and tortured and-  
  
I put the paper down and stood up suddenly. Mom glanced up at me as I stalked across the kitchen and started cleaning my breakfast dishes with a lot more _oomph_ than I normally did.  
  
I hadn’t done anything then. But that didn’t mean I was stuck not ever doing anything. Lightshaft was right. I wasn’t going to be like Ms. Tendo and cut the IRA open with a precisely-worded legal brief. Instead, I could be a lot more _direct_. A flicker of smoke wrapped around my spoon as I stared down into the sink.  
  
“Are you okay, Taylor?” Mom asked, her chair scraping as she turned to look at me.  
  
“Yeah,” I said, dismissing the smoke. Now was _not_ the time to let myself go, not with Mom _right_ there. “Just reading the paper.” I breathed out, my fingers squeezing down tight around the washcloth. “And I was right _there_, Mom,” I continued, staring up out the small window at the lawn. “And those _bastards_ were watching and as soon as we all went away, they-.”  
  
“Yes, I read it too.” She was silent for a minute, and I could feel Mom’s eyes on the back of my neck. I heard her stand up and cross the few feet of tile to me. “Taylor,” Mom said, wrapping her arms around my waist and bringing my head back to rest against her shoulder. “The world is full of evil people.” I snorted. _That_ was the truth. “But just because you don’t spend every minute of the day fighting them, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Or even not a good person.”  
  
I stared ahead as she talked. It felt nice to be held by Mom, but… there _was_ more I could be doing. There was more I should be doing.  
  
“Are you sure?” I asked, putting the bowl away before I dropped it. “That I can just sit back and take it easy while they sell women into sex slavery?”  
  
“Of _course_ not, Taylor,” Mom said. “Get mad over it. Get _real_ mad. But don’t think that just because your life isn’t devoted to the cause twenty-four/seven you’re somehow failing people. Being yourself is important.” She ruffled my hair. “And I do like that part of yourself.”  
  
There was more to me than Mom knew. And even if Taylor couldn’t do much more than wave a sign, Jaunt had body armor and powers. I could do a lot of good. And not just on the picket line.  
  
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, turning around in her grip and smiling at her. “What you’ve said makes sense.”  
  
“I glad to hear that,” Mom said dryly. Her face split into a smile as I hugged her, pressing my forearms against her back, though I made sure not to touch her with my wet, soapy hands. “If you ever need anything, Taylor,” Mom said, “I’m here for you.”  
  
I knew she was. As much as she could be, at least. There was some stuff, as Jaunt, that I was just never going to be able to share with her, even if or when I ended up telling her about _being_ Jaunt. But until then, at least, things could be good _enough_.  
  
I was going to have to go get a burner phone, wasn’t I? And then go and find Lightshaft again, so we could figure out how to get those poor people out of the hellhole they were stuck in.  
  
I had some ideas already.  


*******

I had to admit, a park was a nice change compared to where Lightshaft and I normally met. Even if it was dark out, it was still better than a run-down industrial area or an interchangeable strip mall.  
  
I leaned against the back of a bench, feet idly kicking the legs of it as I waited for Lightshaft to show up.  
  
I still felt kind of unsure about this Not about going after the IRA. They _needed_ to be torn apart, and the people they were abusing and selling needed to be freed. But about working with Lightshaft. She was a villain. Even if she wasn’t as bad as some of the people in the city, she still broke the law.  
  
I shifted from side to side, feeling my cheeks heat underneath my veil. And that wasn’t all she did. The way she could make me feel, the things she had done to me, it was really… um. Yeah, really um.  
  
Lightshaft’s appearance at least let me stop worrying about that kind of thing. I could see where she was coming from before I could see her. There weren’t any lights along that part of the park, and the glow from her powers marked her out pretty well. I stood up and breathed in and out.  
  
“Hello, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, her voice the usual weird harmonic chorus. “It’s good to see you again.”  
  
“Same here,” I replied without really thinking about it. Then I felt like slapping myself. Was I going to say ‘you too’ if she wished me happy birthday? “So,” I said coughing, “how are we going to do this?”  
  
“Will you come with me to my lair of crime and wickedness?” Lightshaft asked.  
  
I _knew_ she was being funny( or ‘funny’) but I still crossed my arms in front of my chest and glared at her. She laughed and stepped closer to me, resting against the bench I had just been leaning on.  
  
“We’ll have to be smart about this,” Lightshaft said, a few traces of amusement still in her voice. “It might be easy enough to slip in, but getting back out? With as many people as we can get? That’s a lot more noticeable.”  
  
I nodded. And Lightshaft wasn’t exactly stealthy, not with her robes glowing like this all the time. Unless…  
  
“Can you turn that,” I gestured at her glowing robes, “all that off?”  
  
“Yes, actually,” Lightshaft said, looking down at her body. “although that means you’ll see all the paint and smoke and the like that’s gotten on it since I borrowed it from the theater.”  
  
I stared at her. The visor and mask meant it was hard to see my face, but she should still be able to tell what expression I had on my face. Her own veil twitched in a way that I was pretty sure meant she was smiling.  
  
“Anyway,” Lightshaft said, “getting in isn’t really the problem. Even fighting the guards won’t be a problem. Getting the people out of the camp and down into the city will be. The biggest problem by far.” She looked at me. “Do you know how to drive?”  
  
I opened my mouth to ask how hard it could be to learn. Then I actually _thought_ about it. Did I really want to learn with other people on the road and in the truck or van or whatever?  
  
“No,” I admitted. “But shouldn’t the prisoners know how to?”  
  
“The older set, not the schoolkids, yes, they should,” Lightshaft said, nodding. “Breaking into federal property isn’t what my network signed up for, but most of them are as mad about this as we are. So there’s a few more drivers.”  
  
“And Miss Tendo,” I said, putting a fist into my hand, “if there’s a bunch of people who need legal help, she’ll issue an injunction or whatever first, and ask questions about where they came from later.”  
  
“And New Wave,” Lightshaft said, ticking her fingers, “they might not actually break down a wall, but with how Glory Girl looked on the news yesterday, the younger set should be willing to make a ruckus on the far side of the facility.”  
“I have Lady Photon’s email address,” I said, getting caught up in the excitement of planning. Half-formed visions were already dancing in my head. “And I’ve talked to Glory Girl and Panacea. I’m sure I can get them to help.”  
  
“Good. Very good,” Lightshaft said with what sounded like a smile. “I doubt any of the government superheroes will help out, and I don’t really know any of the independents. But New Wave’s pretty strong all by themselves.”  
  
“There was something in the news about a whistleblower,” I said, trying to remember if there had been any details. “Do you know of a way to find them?”  
  
“No, and I won’t try,” Lightshaft said. “Getting the names of sources out of reporters is like pulling teeth. Help’s going to come from the prisoners, or from outside the concentration camp.”  
  
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t have a clue on how to find that stuff out myself, so if Lightshaft wouldn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done. “There’s a lot of people in there, so how many…”  
*******  
I sat down on the bench, rubbing my throat. Man, it had been a while since I had talked this much. And I still wasn’t sure how much we had actually got done. Sure, there was a general plan, but there were a _lot_ of loose spots in it. But out here, in the park at night, there wasn’t that much more I _could_ do.  
  
Which meant that I probably _was_ going to have to meet Lightshaft at her lair when we next met to figure out how to actually carry out the plan we had drawn up. That still made me feel kind of uneasy, but it wasn’t _too_ bad. There was just a certain air of… I dunno. Something.  
  
“I think that about wraps it up,” Lightshaft said, stowing the paper pad she had brought with her away inside of her robe. “And at this hour, I think all the good little girls should be getting back home to bed.”  
  
“I’m fine,” I said, not yawning at _all_, which was actually a bit of an accomplishment.  
  
“Then after so long spent thinking and talking, it’s time to blow off some steam,” Lightshaft said, nodding her head. And that thought _did_ sound kind of nice. “Up for a burger?”  
  
“No,” I said, telling the truth. Mom had _loaded_ me with food during dinner, even if she hadn’t had as much time to eat before leaving for another meeting at the college. “Let’s just stay here, okay?”  
  
I hesitated a bit over the last word. An idea had come to me. A really _kinky_ idea, one that I couldn’t quite believe had occurred to me. I could feel my cheeks heating underneath my mask.  
  
“Are you okay?” Lightshaft asked, tilting her head to one side a bit.  
  
“Fine!” I said, squeaking. Man, now was _not_ the time to be thinking about that sort of thing. Okay, _never_ was the appropriate time to consider that stuff, but right in front of Lightshaft was probably the worst possible time. “I’m fine!”  
  
“Are you sure?” Lightshaft said, an amused, cocky note in her voice all of a sudden. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Jaunt?” She took a step closer and put her hand on my shoulder. “Something you’d like to get off of your chest?”  
  
My fingers twitched, brushing against one of the straps that held my armor on me. Man, how hot could my cheeks _get_ underneath here? I stared down at the ground, and saw Lightshaft’s robes block my view of the shadowed asphalt.  
  
“Do you want to try something _new_?” Lightshaft asked, one hand on my shoulder and the other on my opposite hand.  
  
“Like what?” I asked, and then realized how high-pitched and squeaky I sounded. “Like what?” I tried again, sounding a bit more natural. It was still embarrassing.  
  
“If talking is giving you problems, then why not use your mouth for something else?” Lightshaft said.  
  
I moved my gaze a bit, and swallowed at what I saw. The bulge in the center of Lightshaft’s crotch was there again. And I knew what she was suggesting.  
  
I had never given a blowjob before. I mean, who on _Earth_ would I give one too? But the idea sounded appealing. Kind of. Well, more than kind of. Making someone else happy, even if that someone was Lightshaft… and I put a pin in _that_ thought to consider it later, well, it sounded nice. And wasn’t that what heroes were supposed to do? Hah, and if you listened to some of the boys at school, blowjobs were _actually_ what superheroines did to them, totally for real guys.  
  
“I’ve never done that before,” I said, my hand sneaking out to brush against a fold of Lightshaft’s robe.  
  
“I can tell you what to do,” Lightshaft responded, her hand firm on my shoulder but not actually pressing down.  
  
I still went down to my knees, a heady mix of lust and I don’t know what else surging through my body. I knew this was probably pretty wrong. And I really didn’t care. It was just so _thrilling_ to be here, on my knees, staring up at Lightshaft. And then lowering my gaze a bit and staring _at_ Lightshaft.  
  
I swallowed as she pulled her cock out of her robes. Man, it looked bigger than before. I knew that was just because of where I was, but it still looked large. I swallowed and licked my lips, my tongue nervously flitting out to run over them as I reached up and wrapped a hand around it. Lightshaft sighed in pleasure at that and I looked up at her. Not that I could see her face, of course, but instincts died hard.  
  
“Give it a kiss,” Lightshaft said. “Ease your way into it.”  
  
I nodded and leaned forward, sliding the tip of the cock underneath my veil. It brushed against my lips and I shivered. I felt like a _slut_. Man, I hoped Lightshaft didn’t do a real dick move like pull out her phone and take photos of me sucking her cock. I didn’t think she would, but the idea made a knot of dread form inside of my stomach.  
  
But I didn’t stop. I wasn’t going to back down. Not when nothing had actually happened yet. Instead I pressed my lips against the shaft, giving it a kiss. And, I realized, this counted as my first kiss, didn’t it? Okay, _now_ I felt like a slut as I kissed a cock instead of someone else’s face. Even if the only idea I had on who I would be kissing would be Lightshaft.  
  
Kissing Lightshaft’s dick wasn’t quite like I was expecting. It was _firm_, not like Mom’s cheek, which made up most of my previous kissing experience. It was… weird, I guessed. I didn’t really know what else to call it. But I kissed it again, feeling the heat and the hardness pressing against my lips.  
  
One hand was resting on my knee, and the other was griping the bottom half of Lightshaft’s dick. She wasn’t doing anything, just looking down at me, her hands behind her. I glanced up at her from time to time, though my visor meant that it wasn’t very easy to both look at her hooded face and still have my lips pressed against her shaft.  
  
“Now, start moving your hand up and down,” Lightshaft said in a low, calm voice. “Just like you did last time we were together.”  
  
I did so, stroking up and down, up and down. I kissed the dick for a third time, and then took a deep breath. There was a lot more to a blowjob than kissing a dick. I stuck my tongue out and ran it along Lightshaft’s, well, shaft. There was a bit of a salty taste, but not much. In fact, there was barely a taste to it at all. Which made the whole thing easier, I supposed.  
  
“You’re doing a good job,” Lightshaft said in a soft, satisfied voice. “A very good job, for your first time.”  
  
I could see the backhanded compliment in there, thanks to Emma’s _wonderful_ lessons. But it wasn’t something I was going to respond to. Instead, I lapped at the rod again, moving up a bit to the tip.  
  
There was precum there, and _that_ had a lot more of a taste than Lightshaft’s dick itself. I stayed around there for a minute or two. Man, my tongue was starting to ache. This really wasn’t something that I was used to doing. Maybe, well, sucking on it would be easier? I had suckers from time to time. Though there was never a problem with using my teeth on _them_.  
  
I’d just have to be careful. I opened my mouth as far as it could go, and then leaned forward, wrapping my lips around Lightshaft’s cock. Then I slowly closed my jaw, only stopping when I felt a more or less firm sensation of my lips pressing against her shaft.  
  
“So quickly?” Lightshaft said, a note of amusement in her humming voice. “When you go, you go all in.” I paused. “No, no, it’s a good thing,” Lightshaft said, a bit hurriedly. “Keep it up.”  
  
It was a bit easier to take care of Lightshaft’s dick when it was inside of my mouth. Although it was a bit weird to move my hand up and down, brushing my glove against my lips on every stroke. But it wasn’t quite as tiring on my tongue. And hopefully it wouldn’t be too tiring on my jaw.  
  
I kept on going, tasting Lightshaft’s precum start to cover my tongue. The taste was kind of salty and mostly weird. But it wasn’t enough to make me stop.  
  
I wasn’t masturbating myself, but I _was_ turned on. There was just something so… interesting about sucking a cock. Well, sucking Lightshaft’s cock, at least. I wondered if she would be up for returning the favor sometime.  
  
I kept on going up and down, doing my best to keep my tongue and lips pressed against the shaft and _not_ my teeth. And I thought I did a pretty good job. Lightshaft didn’t complain, at least.  
  
“I’m going to cum soon,” Lightshaft said. Her voice was a bit tense as she looked down at me, one hand resting on my shoulder.  
  
Really? Wow, I must be doing a better job than I had thought. Or she was turned on because of _me_. And that was a weird thought, that someone could get turned on because of me. That someone could find either Jaunt or Taylor sexually appealing.  
  
But it felt good enough that I wasn’t going to question it. I was going to keep going, and making Lightshaft cum! And then, well, I supposed I’d go home. Huh.  
  
My plans for the night were cut off as I felt Lightshaft twitch inside of my mouth. I flashed back to the night where I had given her a handjob. This was it.  
  
And I was _not_ going to take her cum in my mouth. I leaned back, Lightshaft’s dick popping out of my mouth. I kept on stroking, even as I made sure to get my entire body out of the line of fire. I didn’t know how easily semen came off of clothing and I was _not_ going to find out.  
  
“That’s it,” Lightshaft sighed, her shoulders a bit slumped. “Just like that, Jaunt, just like _that_.”  
  
And then Lightshaft came. I gasped, shocked at just how much cum was pumping out of her cock. There was a _lot_, and I watched jet after jet of thick white cum leap out onto the ground. I looked back up at her, feeling her hard dick in my grip. Okay, _wow_, that was a lot of semen. How long had she been saving up for?  
  
“Oh, Jaunt,” Lightshaft moaned, putting enough emotion into my name to make me feel tingly inside, “oh that is so _good_.” She reached down and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me up as I squeaked. Then I was pressed against her body in a tight hug. “You’re such a good girl.”  
  
Then she let go of me. I took a shaky step back, watching her shoulders rise and fall. Man, she was expressive after an orgasm. What would she be like if she- nope, if I thought about _that_ kind of thing, it would be back at home, behind my locked bedroom door.  
  
Instead, I just focused on my own breathing. It was harder to breathe while giving a blowjob than I had expected. But it was still kind of nice. Knowing that I had made someone else feel that good. Okay, it was more than _kind_ of nice. It was hot, too. I could feel a heat inside of me.  
  
“Well,” Lightshaft said, a satisfied note in her voice, “that was an amazing first blowjob, Jaunt.” I got the impression she was smiling underneath her mask. “If I ever feel the need for some more, I know who to come to.”  
  
I turned a bit red at that. And my embarrassment must have been obvious through my body language, since Lightshaft laughed. She rubbed my shoulder, her fingers digging through the cloth and making a bit of pressure against my armor.  
  
“Or maybe I can return the favor someday. A woman’s peach is always-.”  
  
“Okay, okay,” I squealed, holding up my hands. My cheeks felt more like a tomato than a peach at the moment. “Maybe next time, okay?”  
  
Then I realized that I had just said there would be a next time. Thankfully, Lightshaft didn’t actually comment on that. She just laughed again and adjusted her robes, tucking her limp dick away underneath her glowing outfit.  
  
“I do have normal, civilian work tomorrow, sad to say,” Lightshaft said, giving my shoulder one last pat. “It’s been fun, Jaunt. But I think both of us need to get some sleep.”  
  
I nodded. Yeah, I was feeling tired. But there was an ache of arousal inside of me that said I wouldn’t be getting any _restful_ sleep. Nope, I was going to have to go back home and masturbate.  
  
I hoped I wouldn’t wake Mom up. Well, if I did, at as embarrassing as it would be to admit that I was touching myself, it would still be better to admit that I had been masturbating instead of planning an attack on the federal government. Mom might approve of that in principal, but not the bit where _I_ ended up doing it.  
  
Well, with luck, she’d never have to know.


	13. Chapter 13

**A Change In Priorities Chapter Thirteen**

  
I breathed in and out, feeling the veil covering the lower half of my face puffing out. It was a fairly chilly night out tonight, at least for late June. Or maybe that was just the cold sweat breaking out all over my body as I waited.  
  
“Are you ready?” Lightshaft asked, resting a hand on my shoulder.  
  
“Uh!” I squeaked, jerking a bit. “I mean, yes. Yes I am.”  
  
“Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, swinging around and looking down at me. I stared up at her, keeping my face as calm as I could. “We can still call this off. If you aren’t ready to do it, then we don’t need to.”  
  
“No.” I said, shaking my head back and forth firmly. “No, we’ve gone too far, there’s too many people waiting on us.” I stood up. “I’m ready to do this.”  
“Good girl,” she said, running a hand down my shoulder. Her touch felt nice. “Then let’s go.”  
  
I nodded and pulled out my burner phone. I sent off a few quick texts as Lightshaft sent off a few of her own. I put my phone away as we got to the corner and looked around the factory at the concentration camp.  
  
Somehow, it looked even worse at night. There weren’t a lot of lights on, either inside the buildings or around the perimeter. Somehow, I had been expecting searchlights and barking dogs while jackboots marched up and down in formation.  
  
I looked over my shoulder as a long line of buses pulled to a stop down the street. I wasn’t sure _how_ Ms. Tendo had found all of those buses. But she had agreed that she would help out anybody she found on the street, no matter their situation. I just hoped we had enough of them to get everyone in the prison out of there.  
  
My phone buzzed, and I got a confirmation signal that New Wave was in position. And that meant it was time for me to go in. Alone.  
  
I took a deep breath and started running across the street, towards the fence. There was nobody there, and I hoped that whoever was watching the cameras wasn’t actually watching the cameras at one in the morning.  
  
As I ran, I built up my shadows, calling on everything I had. I could feel the smoke billowing off of me, stretching out for at least a yard all around me. As I sprinted towards the gate, with the barbed wire on top of it, I jumped upwards, and spent every last wisp of it.  
  
And I made it. My boost carried me high up into the air, going in a straight line. For a few seconds, I had a wonderful sensation of flight, of the wind rippling against my clothes. Then I started to fall a good eighteen feet or so.  
  
I grunted as I landed on the concrete, on the other side of both fences, spending all of the shadows I had just gotten to cushion my landing. I twisted around and looked at the control booth. The guard in there was gaping at me, his jaw almost hitting his chest. I sprinted towards him, unhooking my baton and extending it.  
  
He went for _something_, I wasn’t sure if it was a gun or a radio or what. But it didn’t matter. I still slipped through the open door and brought my baton down _hard_ on his wrist. He went down to the floor with a scream, and I kicked him again in the stomach.  
  
I ignored his gasps for air, and hoped that I had just knocked the fight out of him instead of actually maiming him or anything. I stepped over his body and looked down at the control panel. Luckily, it was pretty simple. There was a button marked ‘Gate Open’ right next to one marked ‘Gate Close’. I hit it, and watched the chain-link gate start to rattle open. As I waited, I glanced deeper into Bradshaw. There was no sign of life. I kept my shadows growing as the gate opened as far as it could.  
  
Then I swung my baton down onto the control panel several times, as hard as I could. The controls shattered and sparked, and some deep dents appeared in the casing. Nodding in satisfaction, I ran out the gate and sprinted down towards the first one, that actually opened up onto the street. I could see Lightshaft waiting for me across the street, the glow from her robes muted a bit. Huh, I hadn’t even known that was possible.  
  
There was nobody manning the first gate. I guess they weren’t expecting anyone to arrive in the middle of the night. That just made it even easier to open up the gate and then smash the controls. By the time I was done with that, Lightshaft was waiting outside the guard booth, staring up at the prison.  
  
“Here we go,” she said as I joined her. “Good job so far.”  
  
“So far,” I said, drawing away from her so she wouldn’t burn away my shadows.  
  
We started running towards the entrance of the main building, where all of the students and refugees were being held. There was still nobody around. Probably all sitting inside, drinking coffee and trying to stay awake.  
  
Lightshaft didn’t even pause to see if the gate was locked. She raised her bow and fired two arrows into the locking mechanism. They sank into the metal a bit and then exploded. Then I _dashed_ past her and rammed straight into the doors, knocking them open.  
  
The inside of the Bradshaw Detention Facility was every bit as ugly as the outside was. And there was a _smell_ that made me wrinkle my noise. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was the uniformed guard sitting inside an enclosure of bulletproof glass, gawping at me as I ran towards him.  
  
“Jaunt, down!” Lightshaft barked from behind me.  
  
I hit the floor, and heard some arrows whistling overhead. The man grunted and fell over, landing out of sight. I whipped my head around to look at Lightshaft.  
  
“Don’t worry,” she said, nocking another arrow to the string. “They’re blunt.” She released it, and another guard who had just looked around the corner went down, his cup of coffee spilling everywhere. “They’ll live.”  
  
Well, I’d known people were going to get hurt doing this. Just so long as they didn’t end up _dead_. I went into the control booth and looked down at the instrument panel. The man was still twitching and moaning and trying to swear, so he couldn’t be hurt that bad. And I had other things to worry about.  
  
Like how complex this panel was. There were a _lot_ of switches here. I flipped one, and winced as the intercom speaker right overhead crackled on. Okay, not that one. But… I flipped another one and the gate next to me rumbled open. I started hitting all of the similar switches I could see. There weren’t very many of them, but it had to help. Then I smashed the panel again and started after Lightshaft, who was already heading deeper into the building.  
  
“I’ve got this floor,” she said, looking up and down a hallway. I could smell a really _awful_ stench, and I heard people start to talk and move around. “Head on up!”  
  
I nodded, and headed for the stairwell. My boots clattered against the metal steps as I ran upstairs. As I went, an alarm started to ring. Ah _shit_. Well, that was the end of any sneaking around. I started running a bit _harder_, and kicked open the door as I rounded the landing.  
  
I stumbled out into another hallway. About fifteen yards away, a uniformed guard took around from the booth he was in. I started running towards him as he grabbed at his radio.  
  
“I’ve got a parahuman on floor two, sec-!”  
  
My baton took him in the stomach and he folded over it, making a coughing sound. There was a squawk of voices from the radio, and I reached down and grabbed it. Tucking it into my belt, I went into the booth and started flipping all of the door switches I could see. There were a lot more of them in this station.  
  
I started down the nearest hallway, and my nose crinkled as the smell came back to me. It was _really_ bad. Kind of like shit and kind of like stale sweat, with some other stuff mixed into it. It was nasty.  
  
And it was clinging to the man who I saw, as he stumbled out of the nearby cell. I took a step back despite myself as he got closer to me.  
  
He was an Asian man, maybe in his thirties. He was even skinner than I was, and his white t-shirt and pants were disgusting, with large stains on them. I didn’t think that he or his clothes had been washed since he had been hauled in here.  
  
He said _something_, though I couldn’t tell what or if he was talking to me. He was looking kind of scared, actually. Wait, duh, of course. It was the middle of the night and I was looking like, well, _me_.  
  
“Hey, don’t worry,” I said, letting my smoke vanish as I held my hands up. Then I stowed my baton away, letting it dangle from my belt. “I’m here to help you.”  
  
He said something in some language again, and I looked over his shoulder. There were some more people coming out of the cell. There were a _lot_ more coming out of the cell. At least a dozen of them, and it looked like a square where I could have laid down and touched one wall with my toes and the other end with my fingertips. Had they even been able to lay down in there?  
  
I looked down the hallway. More and more people were coming out some of the cells. Okay, right, I practiced for this.  
  
“Everyone!” I called out. “I’m Jaunt, and I’m here to rescue you!” A lot of heads turned my way, and I could recognize some of the words in reply as being in English. “Listen, you’ve got to start heading downstairs and out the front doors!” I pointed towards the front of the building. “There are buses waiting for you!”  
  
People started towards the stairwells and elevators, pushing past me. I winced. All of them just _reeked_, a really foul stench clinging to every single one of them. I started pushing past them, trying to get the attention of the people who were still standing around, looking like they didn’t understand what was happening.  
  
“Hey, hey,” I said, tugging on the sleeve of a kid my age. She looked really lost. She looked more than lost, breathing in and out quickly, while staring straight through the concrete wall in front of her. “Hey, it’s going to be alright, okay? We’re going to get you the help you need.”  
  
“Hey, Wu, come on,” another girl said, grabbing the first girl’s shoulder and tugging at her. “We’re getting out of here.” She glanced at me and I nodded quickly. “He’s not going to get to you again.”  
  
I realized, as I looked around, that every one I could see was in street clothes. There wasn’t an orange jumpsuit to be seen. And weren’t prisons supposed to be divided into single gender wings or something? Okay, that didn’t matter. Maybe Ms. Tendo would be interested in that later, but right now I had to focus on getting everyone out.  
  
Even as I thought that, there was a crackle of gunfire, coming in through the walls. I cursed and ran towards the nearest window, sliding in between the groups of shuffling people. They were hesitating and wavering in place.  
  
“Keep on going!” I shouted. “We’re going to keep you safe!”  
  
Man, I hoped we were going to keep them safe. I craned my head as I got to the small window. Outside, on the ground, I could see some brightly colored lights flashing around. Good. The guards were being taken care of as they tried to stop us from rescuing the people.  
  
There was still one more floor to clear. I slipped into the crowd of people slowly stumbling down the metal stairs. They weren’t moving fast, and I wasn’t sure if they _could_ move fast, with how they looked. But at least it wasn’t more than a quarter of a mile or so to the buses.  
  
As I entered the stairwell, I started heading up, my heart pounding in my chest. Things were going so good that I _knew_ something bad was going to happen soon. There was just no way that things could keep on being so easy.  
  
And sure enough, as I burst out of the door, I saw a squad of four guards, with helmets and armor and rifles. They saw me too, and wheeled around, raising their guns to point them at me. I jumped backwards and swung to the inside of the stairwell, even as the guns started barking.  
  
I winced, watching craters appear in the far wall of the stairwell. They only fired for a few seconds before stopping. I took a deep breath, shadows boiling up around me. Then I darted out of the stairwell.  
  
There was another gun shot, but I was already spending the shadows, and dashing at an angle down along the corridor. I was out of their line of fire, and I was so _close_ to them already. If my shadows would just last long enough-  
  
I never found out if they would. The window right next to the squad shattered, and something flew through. Everyone, me included, flinched and looked at it.  
  
I realized that it was Laserdream. She was floating a foot in the air, looking down at the armored men with a cold look on her face. I felt my heart pounding in my chest as she raised a gloved hand and lasers flashed out from her fingertips.  
  
“What the heck?” One of the guards said. “Get her, too!”  
  
I wasn’t sure who exactly screamed, but then there was a small _crack_ and someone else was screaming. I blinked, half-blinded by the flash of light. Then I realized that one of the guards was down on the floor, clutching his hands to his stomach and screaming.  
  
“The barrels are fused _shut_,” Laserdream said. “Just drop the damn-.”  
  
One of the guards yelled and rushed at her, his gun raised like a club. She swung to the side and slammed him against the wall, before throwing him to the floor. His gun went skittering across the floor and ended up hitting my foot.  
  
“You fucking traitor,” a third guard said, his shoulders heaving as he glared at Laserdream. “You think you can get away with this?” His fingers were twitching at his belt.  
  
“After what Mom recorded your boss calling those folks when he asked for our help?” Laserdream said contemptuously. “Yeah, I’ve got good odds on that.”  
  
I looked down the hallway. There were faces at the bars, people peering out at us, calling out, trying to figure out what was going on. The noise was quickly rising. The two cells nearest to use were dark and empty.  
  
“We can’t keep them out here next to all the people,” I said. “Hey, all of you,” I said, trying to sound as tough and intimidating as I could, letting smoke billow out from me and waving my baton around. “Drop your radios, and pistols and _everything_.”  
  
The guards looked at me, fuming. Even the one who had gone to the ground was mostly quiet. I couldn’t see much blood on his hand, either. He must not have been hurt that badly.  
  
“I don’t know who you are,” the mouthy guard said, glaring at me, “but you’ve all made a huge mistake attacking us.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, swinging my baton towards the cells. “Let’s go get you in your new homes.”  
  
I went into the control booth and looked over the labeled buttons. Okay, that was Cell 3B1. I flicked it open and watched it rumble open. Then I stepped back out as Laserdream ushered the guards into it, sparks flickering around her fingers to help remind them of why they should do as she said.  
  
Then I closed the door. Laserdream backed up and looked at me.  
  
“Need any more help with all of this?” She asked, already backing towards the half-melted and half-shattered window.  
  
“No, I’m good,” I said. “Thank you for helping.”  
  
“Just doing what’s right,” she said, before vanishing through the window.  
  
I sighed, watching her go. Man, she looked cool. Okay, time to keep on moving. I glanced outside the window and saw Laserdream flying down to the ground, where there was a long stream of people running through the gates towards the street. I could see Lightshaft down there as well, directing people and standing in front of some huddling guards. Sometimes people started towards them, but she waved them off.  
  
By now, hitting the controls to open up the cells was almost routine. I walked down the hallway as the doors slid open. The people were just as tightly packed inside of these cells as any of the lower ones. And the first two cells I passed had been completely and utterly empty, without a single soul in them.  
  
“I-is this a trick?” A middle-aged woman asked in a thick accent. She kept away from me, which kind of hurt. “Are you really letting us go?”  
  
“Yes,” I said, smiling underneath my veil and stepping forward, grabbing her shoulder and shaking her hand. “There are some buses just across the street,” I said, pointing outside. “They’ll get you to safety.”  
  
There were already people moving past me. It felt good, seeing the expressions on their faces. It was a lot less good that some of them were being carried out by their friends.  
  
And I started to worry about it going really badly when I saw a tall, buff Asian guy standing outside the cell the guards were in. He was pacing back and forth. As I got closer to him, I could actually hear what he was saying.  
  
“How about it cocksucker?” He said, glaring at one of the guards. “Come over here and we’ll see how well a white guy dances this time.” He stuck his arm through the bars, trying to get at the guard standing. “Bet you can’t take it like you can dish it out.”  
  
“You think things are bad now?” One of the guards, the argumentive, short one from earlier said, standing up and taking a step closer, but still staying out of reach. “Touch me and you’ll see what a stay in Big Boy jail is _really_ like.”  
  
The guy gave a tug on the bars, but the door was locked shut. He started when I touched his shoulder and he spun around to look at me. I held my hands up.  
  
“Listen man,” I said, pointing at the people that were moving past us. Some of them were shuffling or limping, some of them were almost sprinting and some of them were relying on each other for support, “what’s more important? Finding a way to open that door, or getting yourself and everyone else here out of this dump?”  
  
He looked back at the guards and ran his finger across his neck in a throat-slitting gesture. But then he turned and grabbed the arm of some staggering Hispanic girl and started helping her walk in a straight line.  
  
There were a lot of people, but the hallway was pretty wide. There was a bit of a jam at the stairwells, though, and I held back for a moment instead of trying to fight my way through the mass. I looked back at the guards as I fiddled with my radio. That wasn’t being as helpful as I had hoped, since I didn’t understand the location references they were using, when I could even understand the individual words in the first place.  
  
“You little bitch,” one of the other guards said, glaring at me. “What’s America coming to, when traitors like you run around?”  
  
“Uh huh,” I said, looking out the window. The stream was dying down, and a good thing too. The city cops were going to get here _eventually_, even if it took them a while to get enough people together. “I feel so bad about what I’m doing.”  
  
“You will,” the guard promised. “You’re going to pay for this.”  
  
“Right back at you,” I said, as the last few stragglers left the floor.  
  
And with that _witty_ retort, I went down the stairwell. I breathed in and out. Holy shit, this had actually worked. I hadn’t been entirely sure that it actually would. But there were no cops swarming around, I wasn’t bleeding, the captives had escaped. It was _working_. And I should be on a bus in five minutes.  
  
I clattered down the stairs, making sure that I didn’t get ahead of any of the escaping people. It wouldn’t do any good to leave someone behind, after all! Quite a few of them weren’t moving very fast, even though people as young as some of the ones I saw shouldn’t have _any_ problems with a few flights of stairs. But they looked _awful_.  
  
I still got them out, my head turning around like a searchlight. But no more guards appeared. I wondered if we had taken out everyone who was on duty, or if they were holed up somewhere, waiting for reinforcement. Well, if they weren’t around, it wasn’t a problem.  
  
I saw Lightshaft as I left the main building. It was _really_ easy to see her, standing out in the darkness with her robes glowing. I turned towards her, as she looked over the complex of outbuildings that made up the rest of the facility.  
  
“Is everyone out?” Lightshaft asked, turning her hooded head towards me as I got close.  
  
“I think so,” I said, looking at the column of people as they made their way across the street. Man, it was a good thing it was so late out, and a weekend besides. Traffic could have been nasty, otherwise. “I’ve cleared out those two floors, and they’re all out here.”  
  
“And I’ve been taking care of these scum,” Lightshaft said, waving a hand at the huddled guards. “You did good, Jaunt.”  
  
I straightened up and smiled in pride at that. I looked up at the looming, near-empty building, and then at the stream of people. I had helped to do that. I had been the one to set them free. And now I needed to make sure that they got home safe.  
  
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said, starting towards the gate.  
  
Lightshaft and I brought up the rear. I kept on glancing behind me and around, wondering just when the bad luck was going to hit. Surely things couldn’t have gone _this_ easy, could they?  
  
But even though the sirens kept on wailing and I kept on sweating, nothing happened as we crossed the street. Not even as we made sure that everyone got on board a bus. Not even as Ms. Tendo gave me a wink as the bus she was on pulled into motion.  
  
“And now it’s out of our hands,” Lightshaft said, clapping me on the back. “And we did _good_, Jaunt.” She turned her head to look at me. “Care to come with me and celebrate?”  
  
I thought that over for a second. Then I realized just how _good_ that idea sounded. There was still so much life and energy flowing through me, there was no _way_ that I could go home and go to bed. And being with Lightshaft, well… there was something nice to that. Something really nice.  
  
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Sure thing.” I swallowed and looked back over my shoulder, as if I could see through the warehouse and look at the prison. “It will be nice to relax with you.”  
  
I followed Lightshaft to her car. I realized that nothing bad was going to happen. We were going to get away with it.  
  
And I still couldn’t quite believe it.


	14. Chapter 14

**A Change In Priorities Chapter Fourteen**

  
Lightshaft’s car pulled into an overlook, high up in the hills overlooking Brockton Bay. I breathed in and out, feeling my heart beating in my chest. It had slowed down a _lot_ as we had left the prison but it was still beating fairly quickly. Because I knew why we were here. It wasn’t to look out at the city and the ocean, no matter how nice they looked at night.  
  
I nervously coughed into my fist and looked over at Lightshaft. She turned her head to look at me as she unbuckled.  
  
“Well, Jaunt, care to step outside?” She asked, pushing her door open.  
  
I did the same, and breathed in and out through my veil as I felt the cool night air wash over me. I walked around to the front of the car and sat down on the hood, still feeling nervous.  
  
Okay, Lightshaft and I were going to have sex. That was pretty obvious. Why else would we be up here?  
  
And I _wanted_ to have sex. And I even wanted to have sex with Lightshaft. Touching myself down there felt great, and everything I read about it said that the actual thing would feel so much better. And the things Lightshaft had already done to me felt great as well. And I liked Lightshaft. She was so confident and she knew how to touch me and make things feel so _wonderful_.  
  
I was still just a bit nervous. This was going to be something brand new for me, something I had never done before. I really, really hoped that it turned out well. That it was fun and enjoyable and pleasant and _everything_.  
  
The car sagged down a bit as Lightshaft sat down next to me. I took a deep breath, seeing the glow of her robes out of the corner of my eyes. She put one of her hands on top of mine, and squeezed down slightly.  
  
“Thank you for your help, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, turning her hooded head to look at me. Her humming voice sounded warm. “I couldn’t have done it without you, and all of the people you convinced to help.”  
  
“I, oh, that’s alright,” I said, nervously, shifting around on the hood. “It was the right thing to do. All of it. I’m glad that it worked.”  
  
“Oh, it’s not over yet,” Lightshaft said with a bit of a laugh. “But we can take the rest of the night off, and spend it on ourselves.” She shifted a bit closer to me. “Just you and I.”  
  
“I’d like that,” I said quickly, before I could say anything else. “But, um, well,” oh what the hell, Taylor, she already knew. “It’s going to be my first time,” I said, staring out over the lights of the city. “Be gentle with me.”  
  
“I’ll be as gentle as you want me to be,” Lightshaft said with a chuckle. “I think I have an idea of what you like by now.”  
  
I squirmed around some more. Well, okay, she did. The spanking and the stripping and the molesting and everything that had felt so good and so shameful.  
  
“Why don’t you make yourself more comfortable,” Lightshaft said, rapping her knuckles against the armor encasing my torso. “There should be a blanket in the trunk of the car. One second.”  
  
Lightshaft slid off of the hood and walked away. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down a bit. Okay, first things first. Getting rid of this armor. Which wasn’t going to be the easiest thing in the world, since it was underneath my shirt. And I’d need to remove my helmet to get the shirt off.  
  
I did so, realizing that I was kind of being ridiculous in worrying about hiding my civilian identity from the woman who was about to take my virginity. But, well, Jaunt was a far, far cooler person than Taylor Hebert had ever been. I wanted Lightshaft to be looking down at the cool badass who fought the federal government, not the girl who struggled in school and didn’t have any friends.  
  
And I didn’t have much time. Lightshaft was still at the rear of the car, but how long could it take to find a blanket? I unstrapped my helmet and pulled it off, and then detached the veil. I draped it back over the lower half of my face. And I’d have to hope it stayed in as Lightshaft fucked me.  
  
Then I whipped my shirt off and tried to wiggle out of the armor plates as fast as I could. And I had to admit, it felt _nice_ to get out of the heavy, stifling plates and not feel them pressing down on my shoulders anymore. I heard the trunk door close and debated if I should put my over shirt back on, or if my t-shirt would just be enough.  
  
It would be, I decided. I carefully turned my head to look at Lightshaft as she came back up towards me, her arrival heralded by the glow of her costume. One hand stayed pressed against my face, keeping my veil there.  
  
“Oh my, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said happily as she looked at me. “You look _nice_.”  
  
I blushed and smiled underneath the veil. I felt kind of chilly, actually, wearing just a thin t-shirt. But I was sure that Lightshaft would help me warm up soon enough.  
  
Lightshaft spread the blanket out on the ground in front of the car. I joined her, sitting quite close to her. And still pressing a hand against my face.  
  
“Here, let me,” Lightshaft said, moving behind me and grabbing the edges of the veil in her hands. “Let’s see… ah, there we go.” I felt the veil being jerked around, and something firm and cool pressing against the back of my head. “Not what I usually use those zipties for, but it will do.”  
  
Lightshaft appeared in front of me. Quite close to me, in fact. My heart started pounding inside of my chest as I stared at her. I still couldn’t see much of her underneath the robes, but I knew I probably shouldn’t. She almost certainly wouldn’t be as attractive as I had built her up to be. Just like me.  
  
“Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, resting a hand on my thigh, “I really am glad that I met you.” She got a bit closer, and I felt my heart start to beat faster and faster inside of my chest and sweat start to form. “Whether you call yourself hero or villain after tonight, I know that you’re still a good person, and someone I care for deeply.”  
  
Now I was blushing. Blushing pretty badly, too. I looked off to the side, fidgeting and mumbling something. Then I looked back.  
  
Lightshaft was even closer by now. She rested one hand on my shoulder. I took a deep breath and raised my own hands, grabbing at her waist through her robes. We drew closer together, until we were almost pressed against each other.  
  
Then I started to let myself down, sinking to the blanket and staring up at Lightshaft as her glowing form eclipsed the night sky. I was feeling nervous, but I was also feeling turned on. I couldn’t wait for whatever happened next.  
  
One of Lightshaft’s hands went towards my small, barely-there breasts. And I let her. It felt so _good_. Really, really good. I moaned, feeling her working through my thin t-shirt, touching me and teasing me and making my breasts and nipples feel _really_ good. I shivered and lifted my hands, grabbing onto her shoulders.  
  
And Lightshaft was still moving. She was still exploring my body, her hand coming down to my pants. I spread my legs apart, letting her do _anything_ she wanted to me. I didn’t care what, just so long as this pleasure kept on rising. I trusted her to know what would feel good and what would make me _melt_ in pleasure.  
  
We didn’t kiss. I wasn’t surprised, since she still had the scarf-like covering over her lower face and I had my veil. It still felt a bit bad, though. Kissing was really natural, and I thought it would feel really good. Well, it would happen sooner or later, I supposed.  
  
“You’re so pretty,” Lightshaft said, running her hands up and down my body. “So slender and lean and strong.”  
  
She was just being nice because she wanted to fuck me, obviously. But it was still enjoyable to hear. I smiled as she complimented me, and did a lot of other things to me as well.  
  
I was twitching around on the blanket by now, feeling the arousal growing and growing inside of me. The heat was so intense, and I _needed_ a release from it. And there was just one thing that would feel right, I knew.  
  
I moved my hands down Lightshaft’s body to her crotch. I could feel her dick through the robes, hard and straining. She didn’t stop me as I fished it out from her robes, looking at the length as I ran my hand up and down along it. It was big and hard and hot, and I wondered what it would feel like _inside_ of me, inside of my most sensitive place. Good, I hoped. Really, really good.  
  
“Lightshaft?” I asked, taking a deep breath. “You know what you’re doing right?”  
  
Lightshaft laughed and laughed at that. There was no hint of mockery in her voice, though, and she patted me on the shoulder.  
  
“Yes, I know what to do, Jaunt,” she said, unbuttoning my pants. I lifted my hips and let her tug them down off of me. “And I’ll make it feel _wonderful_ for you as well.”  
  
I nodded and took a deep breath. I slid my panties down as well, and let Lightshaft look down at my crotch. I squirmed around in embarrassment, wishing that I looked better down there. And everywhere else.  
  
“Jaunt,” Lightshaft said, tugging a glove off and running her fingers against my pussy, making me gasp and squirm, “you really are such a wonderful woman. Thank you for sharing this with me.”  
  
I nodded, blushing _hard_. The arousal was rising and rising inside of me, becoming impossible to ignore as she touched me. And I didn’t want to ignore it. I wanted to feel _more_, so much more. I wanted her dick inside of me. _Now_.  
  
“Please,” I moaned, laying my hand over hers and rubbing back and forth. It felt _nice_, and I shivered at the sensation of her touch, of her fingers pressing against my wet slit and even going inside of me a bit. “I’m ready, Lightshaft. Take me.”  
  
Lightshaft nodded, and didn’t say anything. She lowered herself until the tip of her dick was resting against my pussy. It felt _good_. Just that sent shivers through me, shivers that I could barely stand to feel as she rubbed back and forth. I took some deep breaths and then relaxed as much as I could.  
  
And then Lightshaft slid into me. And it was _amazing_. I moaned, not caring if someone somehow heard me. Her rod felt glorious inside of me, pushing deeper inside at a slow, steady pace. And she was spreading my walls apart, making me feel so _full_. I gasped, shoulders rising and falling as she kept on fucking me.  
  
“It’s good,” I moaned, looking up at her. “It’s so, so good, Lightshaft.”  
  
“I’m loving this, too,” she said, her humming voice a bit distorted. “You feel so nice around me, Jaunt.”  
  
I nodded and let my head fall backwards against the blanket. There wasn’t even any pain. Heh, I supposed I had masturbated often enough that I didn’t need to worry about _that_ anymore. I could just focus on how she was making me feel.  
  
And Lightshaft was making me feel so, so good. I gasped as she started to really _fuck_ me, sliding in and out, my wet walls letting her move faster and faster. I found that I was squeezing down around her, and that made things feel even _better._  
  
I started to pant and moan as Lightshaft moved in and out of me. It felt _good_. It felt really, really good and I was so _happy_ that it was just as good as I had hoped it might be. Sure, it was hard to think and react and move when she was treating me like this, but so what? When she was making me feel better than I ever had before.  
  
I was reaching up and touching Lightshaft before I even realized that I was doing so. Her robe felt as soft as silk underneath my hands, and I loved it. I loved everything about this. Even the cars that occasionally whizzed past on the road just added a bit of _thrill_ to all of this, the thrill that someone could come and see me, half-naked and getting fucked.  
  
Lightshaft’s head and body had been lowered, until she was almost pressed against me. We were so close that I could actually see the glint of her eyes. But I couldn’t concentrate on something like that, not when I was feeling so _good_ as I got fucked.  
  
“How does it feel?” Lightshaft asked, running a hand along my cheek, pressing down through my veil.  
  
“Amazing,” I moaned, looking up at her. “You’re making me feel so good, Lightshaft.”  
  
“And I’ll keep on making you feel good,” Lightshaft promised. “Not just tonight, but on and on.” She pressed a finger against my lips through the veil, and I found my mouth opening up a bit, letting it slide in. “There’s all kinds of things I want to do to you and show you, Jaunt.”  
  
I had an idea of what those things could be. And even though they made my heart beat with embarrassment, I still wanted to see what those things would be, and how they would feel.  
  
And right now, I thought I was going to feel an orgasm. Lightshaft was fucking me faster and faster, and it was feeling so _good_ inside of me. I moaned, grabbing at the blanket as she thrust into me. Her dick was so big and so _hard_, and it felt so wonderful as I squeezed down around it.  
  
I hoped that it was feeling just as good for Lightshaft. It had to be, right? She wouldn’t be this hard if she wasn’t loving how I felt around her. And so, reassured, I let my head fall back, and let myself keep on getting fucked.  
  
Lightshaft really knew her way around my body. She was stroking my thighs and playing with my tiny tits, and it felt _great_. If I had been more confident, or more coordinated, I would have done the same to her. As it was, I just had to lay back and let her keep on fucking me, and make me keep on feeling so good.  
  
“Lightshaft,” I moaned, rocking my hips back and forth as much as I could, squeezing down tightly around the shaft that was moving in and out of me, “Lightshaft, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love-!”  
  
I came.  
  
I came _hard_. I wasn’t sure if I had ever had such a good orgasm in my life. It was amazing, red-hot pleasure racing through my body, making me quiver and twitch and moan as I thrashed around underneath Lightshaft. Meaningless babble fell from my lips as Lightshaft slowed to a halt inside of me, no longer making me feel quite so, so _stimulated_. Though I was still feeling wonderful.  
  
Lightshaft stared down at me as I came. I panted and quivered, looking up at her glowing form. After a while, she patted the side of my head.  
  
“And how was that, Jaunt?” She asked kindly. “Was it everything you had hoped it would be?”  
  
“Yes,” I moaned, letting my head slump backwards. “It was amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much.”  
  
“It’s not over yet,” Lightshaft said with a chuckle, running her fingers around the spot where she and I were joined. “Not unless you want it to be.”  
  
I shook my head. I was still full of energy. I could keep on going. I could handle every single thing that Lightshaft could give me.  
  
And so she started thrusting again, sliding in and out of my pussy, her thick dick making me feel so _good_. The pleasure was just as good the second time around as it started to rise up inside of me, growing closer and closer to the surface.  
  
And it wasn’t just the pleasure in my pussy. Lightshaft was still touching me, her hands were still all over my small breasts, my t-shirt pulled up around them as she toyed with me. I moaned and squealed, not quite sure how it was possible that I was withstanding something that felt so good.  
  
I rocked back and forth against Lightshaft, wanting more and more. And wanting her to feel good too. And I thought she was. She was thrusting faster and faster into me, making me melt around her as she touched and stroked and did so many wonderful things to me. I hoped she would cum soon, so that I would _know_ that we were both making each other feel _so_ good.  
  
“I love you, too, Jaunt,” Lightshaft said after a long pause where neither of us spoke, just focusing on the fucking. “You’re cute and driven and idealistic. And,” she paused, and I was sure she was smiling underneath her hood, “you’re such a kinky sub for me.”  
  
I blushed at that and turned my head away. Okay, I _was_. There was no way to deny something like that. And if it felt so good, did I really want to? I reached up and wrapped my arms around Lightshaft’s head, tugging her down a bit. If we weren’t masked, we could have kissed each other.  
  
Instead, I just felt her body and her hands on mine as she kept on thrusting into me. And that was enough. That was _more_ than enough.  
  
I came. And it felt so _good. _I couldn’t believe how good it felt to cum, for the second time in maybe five minutes. Stars danced in front of my eyes as I stared upwards, looking at Lightshaft’s hooded face as I twitched around.  
  
“Again?” She asked, sounding delighted. “Every time I think I’ve found out how much of a slut you are, you keep on finding some new way to show me how _horny_ you are.”  
  
How could I deny something like that, when I was squeezing down around her cock. My head jerked up and down. I felt my veil start to get dislodged and reached up to adjust it, my fingers thick and clumsy against my face. I moaned, as low and sultry as I could manage as I kept on getting toyed with. And _used_. I couldn’t possibly forget how good it felt to get used like this.  
  
“I’m your slut,” I moaned, my head lifting up before slamming back against the blanket. “I’m all yours, Lightshaft!”  
  
“And I’m going to fill you up soon,” Lightshaft said, her humming voice tense. “All the way up.”  
  
I couldn’t wait. Everything else about this had felt so good, and I was ready for the finale. That had to feel good as well, right? It had been so much non-stop pleasure, and I just needed a little bit more.  
  
Lightshaft’s hands went down to my thighs and squeezed down tight. I twitched around, heart beating like a jackrabbit inside of me. This was it. She was cumming inside of me. And it felt so _good_.  
  
I could feel her rod twitching around inside of me. And then she was squirting semen into me. It was so _hot_. And so good. I couldn’t believe how _intense_ it all was. I loved it.  
  
And I loved Lightshaft. I looked up at her glowing cloak, and I just couldn’t stay still anymore. I pushed myself up, my hand scrabbling at my veil to pull it down.  
  
And then I was kissing her, straight through her scarf. I could just about feel her lips as she jerked back in surprise. Then, within a second, she was kissing me back. She hadn’t pulled down her hood, but it was still so thin that we could still kiss each other.  
  
My first kiss was just as good as everything else here. I moaned into her mouth as I felt my walls squeeze down tight around her as she pumped some more cum into me. I could feel her firm lips pressing against me, and her hands holding on tightly to me. It was _wonderful_.  
  
I pulled back, shoulders heaving and my face as red as anything. I blinked as I stared at Lightshaft. Wow, oh _wow_. This was perfect.  
  
“Taylor?”  
  
I blinked, not expecting to hear my name. For a second, I couldn’t even figure out who was saying it. Then I looked at Lightshaft and knew that she was the one who had said it. But how had she _known_ who I was?  
  
Then she pulled her hood back, letting me see her face for the very first time. And it was a face that was so familiar that I didn’t even need to think a bit before recognizing it.  
  
“Mom?” I whispered, looking up at my mother’s face, perched above the glowing robes of Lightshaft. “How?”  
  
“No,” Lightshaft, Mom, moaned, reaching up and holding onto her head with her hands, the glowing gloves digging into her skin. “Not Taylor.”  
  
I realized that Lightshaft was still pinning me down onto the ground. And all of a sudden, I needed to get as far away from her as I could. And I could barely even manage wiggling a bit, feeling her body pressing down against me.  
  
“Is it really you?” I asked, the blanket bunching up underneath me as I tried to wiggle away. “Mom?”  
  
“Oh Taylor,” Mom said, her voice no longer humming. It hadn’t been humming ever since she drew her hood back, I realized. “Taylor, I’m so, so sorry.”  
  
“I, I just can’t,” I started to say before trailing off. I just couldn’t _what_? What was I supposed to be doing or saying or thinking right now? This was all so insane. “You fucked me, Mom?”  
  
“I guess I did,” Mom said, looking down at my crotch, where we were joined. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think that you were Jaunt.” She sounded stunned.  
  
“Well, I am,” I said, shivering as I felt her dick shrink inside of me. “I’ve _always_ been Jaunt.” I looked up at her, still not quite believing that this was happening. “And you’ve always been Lightshaft.”  
  
“For almost two years now,” Mom said, reaching down and putting a hand on my shoulder. “But- oh, how did this _happen_?”  
  
My mind was still grappling with itself, trying to resolve the arousal that was running through me with the knowledge that it was because of my _mother_. And that I had wanted to feel her touch on my skin, feel her _inside_ of me. I had wanted _Lightshaft_ to do that. But Mom? No, there was just no room in my mind to make _that_ fit.  
  
“Oh, Taylor,” Mom said, leaning down and scooping me up in a big hug. I squeaked, and shivered, feeling the front of my body pressing against her robes. It should have felt nice, either Mom _or_ Lightshaft hugging me. But instead, it just felt… I had no idea what I was feeling. “I had no idea. I never even suspected that you were a cape.” She pulled her head back to look at me. “Let alone,” she looked down at me, at the scraps of the costume that I was still wearing, “Jaunt.”  
  
“I,” I breathed deeply, feeling a cold sweat all over my body as my stomach churned, “I was just trying to do what you always told me about. About going out and doing the right thing.”  
  
“Oh, Taylor,” Mom said again, cradling my face in her hands. “Taylor, Taylor, Taylor.” She looked away for a minute before staring at me again, water glistening in her eyes. “I,” she sighed deeply. “I am proud of you. What you’ve done as Jaunt,” she glanced down at my body, with so much of it on display, “even though I’m now worried about _you_, I’m still so, so proud of what you’ve done.”  
  
That was good to hear. It would have been a lot better if her penis wasn’t still inside of me, and if I wasn’t feeling semen dripping out of me, but still. I swallowed, trying to think of what I should even say to something like that.  
  
“And Mom,” I said, wiggling around, feeling her dick move out of me a bit, “I really did think of Lightshaft as a…” I trailed off, blushing _hard_. There were quite a few things I had thought of Lightshaft as, and I wasn’t going to repeat most of them, even inside of my own head. Especially now that I knew her secret identity. “Friend.”  
  
“Heh,” Mom said, running the back of her hand across her eyes, “I was thinking of Jaunt as something like that as well.” She looked down again and winced. She pulled away from me, and I gasped a bit, feeling her rod sliding out of me. “But that’s going to have to change now, won’t it?”  
  
I opened my mouth to deny that, a memory of the pleasure I had been feeling just five minutes ago flashing through my mind. Then I actually _thought_ about what I had been about to say and nodded. There was _no_ way I could say something like that to Mom. I should be ashamed for even _thinking_ of something like that.  
  
“Yeah,” I said, looking down at where Mom’s limp cock hung out through her robes, just a few inches away from me. “Lots of stuff is going to have to change now.”  
  
And I didn’t have the slightest idea what it was going to change _to_. Obviously I couldn’t go back to the old ways of sneaking out underneath Mom’s nose and going to flirt and fight with Lightshaft. And a union of the two just sounded _horrible_. And I wasn’t going to quit being Jaunt. So what did that leave me with?  
  
Seriously, what was I supposed to do now?  
  
Go home, I guess. Clean myself up, change into some other clothes. And then live with the knowledge that Mom had fucked me. And that I had wanted her to fuck me. And that neither of us had known about the other.  
  
What was the answer to that kind of question?  
  
“Okay, Taylor, I,” Mom said, trailing off. “Let’s get you home, alright?” She looked away. “We both need to go home and…” she trailed off. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen Mom at such a loss for words. It wasn’t something I liked seeing.  
  
“Taylor,” she said after pausing for a while. She grabbed my shoulders and looked at me. “You’re still my daughter, and I still love you. I’ll _always_ love you, no matter what? Understand?”  
  
“Yes, Mom,” I said, nodding and knowing that she was telling the truth. “And I love you too.”  
  
And it was the _right_ kind of love. It had to be. I had… feelings towards Lightshaft, but I _wasn’t_ going to have those same feelings towards Mom. Not at _all_. That kind of thing was just too disgusting to even think of.  
  
Mom gave me a weak smile and crawled off of me. I ran my hands through my hair, feeling the sweat running down my body. I started to grab my helmet and armor and all the other stuff that had ended up scattered around.  
  
I pulled my over shirt back down on my body and gave myself a hug. I was _shivering_ for some reason, like it wasn’t the height of summer. I glanced over at Mom as she opened up the car. The car that I had never seen before. I wondered where she had gotten it from.  
  
“Taylor, I,” Mom said, resting her head in her hands and her elbows on the car roof, “there’s… a lot we need to figure out. But I still love you, and I’m not going to stop you from being Jaunt.” She offered me a small smile. “And I hope you can forgive me for what I did to you.”  
  
“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “I didn’t… you couldn’t have… I don’t blame you, Mom. There’s nothing to blame you for,” I said, clutching my arm and staring down at the ground.  
  
“I’ll certainly find some things to blame myself for when I go to bed tonight,” Mom said with a sigh. “And things I should have done differently. But at least I have the chance to make things right now.”  
  
I nodded as I climbed into the passenger seat of the car, my armor and helmet everything resting in my lap as I sat down. I stared straight ahead as Mom climbed into the driver’s seat. My legs were clenching and relaxing, in a fight or flight response. But I couldn’t really do either, could I? I just had to stay here and be with Mom.  
  
“Um, Mom?” I said, turning my head to look at her as she rested her hands on the steering wheel. “Thank you for what you showed me.” I jiggled the stuff I was holding, that I had only gotten from what Lightshaft had told me.  
  
“I showed you a lot too much,” Mom sighed. “That’s going to stop right away.”  
  
Yeah. Yeah, that was for the best. Obviously. What other possible choice could there be, in the real world?  
  
This night really had changed things, hadn’t it?


	15. Interlude: Wards

  
Chris drummed his fingers on his breastplate as he looked around the briefing room. The entire Wards crew was there, chatting with each other or studying their phones or doing whatever. He supposed he should pull out his mini-tool box and do some maintenance or whatever on his gear. _Or_ he could talk to some of his friends. That sounded a lot better.  
  
“Hey, Carlos,” Chris said, pushing his chair to the side a bit so he could talk to Aegis a bit more easily. “How’s it going?”  
  
“Umf,” Carlos said, reaching up underneath his helmet to rub at his eyes. “Let’s just say that it’s a good thing I don’t need to sleep. Seems like I spent all night at my church.”  
  
“Oh,” Chris said. “Helping some, ah, lost people?”  
  
“And some kids I actually know, yeah. Took a long while to settle them.”  
  
“You know anything about what this is about?” Chris asked. “Beyond the obvious?”  
  
“No idea,” Carlos said, with a bit of a frown in his voice. “I didn’t get told anything more than you guys did.”  
  
The Wards leader was in the dark? Dang, that did _not_ fill Chris with confidence.  
  
Kid Win was about to say something more on the subject when the door at the front of the room opened. Three people walked through. Miss Militia, Director Piggot, and a guy that Chris didn’t recognize. He was white and wearing a suit that looked a bit rumpled. The level of conversation dropped in the room and everyone sat up straight. Mostly everyone. Shadow Stalker was leaning forward, propping her head up on her hands as she stared at the three.  
  
“Wards,” Miss Militia said, giving everyone a level look behind her flag mask, “we are here to brief you on a new operation, Justice Prevails.” There was some snickering through the room at the name. “You will be operating in conjunction with the Protectorate, the PRT, the BBPD and the IRA.”  
  
“Called it,” Clockblocker muttered underneath his breath, and Chris nodded.  
  
Last night had been _all_ over the news since the moment Chris had been waken up by his phone buzzing like an action figure with demands for him to get down to HQ and get suited up. Really, what else could it have been?  
  
“But not New Wave?” Gallant asked, raising his hand. “I’ve been talking with Glory Girl, and she’s said that they’re all very eager to help out.”  
  
“We had quite enough of New Wave’s aggressive de-escalation policies last night,” the man said sourly. “It seems that they no longer have America’s interests at heart.”  
  
“Something to be examined more fully in the days and weeks ahead,” Director Piggot said with an actual attempt at tact. “For now, Vice Director James Kennick and I agree that there’s no reason to commit every hero in the city to a single operation. We have every confidence in your abilities to complete the operation’s objectives.”  
  
Man, that was too many Directors in one place. At least Chris had a name now. He switched back towards Miss Militia.  
  
“As I was saying,” Miss Militia continued, “the operation will involve finding the detainees who left federal custody last night, and holding them for pickup. For further details, Vice Director Kennick.”  
  
“Thank you, Miss Militia,” the man said, stepping in front of the screen. The overhead projector played on the flag pin he wore on his lapel, and sent a beam of light straight into Chris’s eyes. He grimaced and slid to the side a bit.  
  
“As you have heard from the media,” Kennick said, “last night the Bradshaw Detention Facility was attacked by two parahumans, the villains Lightshaft and Jaunt. They broke out all of the criminals and economic migrants that we were holding, some six hundred and fifty people.”  
  
Next to Chris, Carlos raised his hand. Kennick gave him a nod of acknowledgment.  
  
“I did some digging, and the BDF was rated to hold four hundred people,” Aegis said crisply. “When I was released from the cell I was stuffed in, you personally told me that the situation would be resolved, and that the population levels would decrease.” Aegis paused for a second, as Piggot switched her permanent glare from the room in general to him in particular. “What happened?”  
  
“That is a completely irrelevant question to the situation at hand,” Piggot said, her voice quelling. “Pay attention to the briefing, Aegis.”  
  
“As I was saying,” Kennick said, giving Aegis a _look_, “the inmates were broken out and dispersed into the city by pre-arranged transportation. The time of night and New Wave’s interference meant that none of the buses could be recovered before the fugitives escaped into minority neighborhoods. A cross-agency task force is being assembled to recover them before they completely go to ground. And that is where you come in.”  
  
The briefing continued, with the projection flicking to show maps of the city, with areas and zones clearly delineated. Chris stared at it, and took some copious notes. He wished he didn’t have to. What kind of Tinker had memory problems?  
  
He might have issues with getting his brain to work the way everyone else’s seemed to, but Chris could still pick up on something that seemed wrong. Well, a bunch of things seemed wrong, but Chris was actually going to comment on this. He raised his hand.  
  
“Yes?” Miss Militia asked, giving Chris a slight nod.  
  
“Ma’am, Director,” Chris said, turning his helmeted head towards Director Piggot. “Why are any of us getting involved in this? We weren’t last time, and it doesn’t sound like there’s going to be much parahuman action going on.”  
  
“Law and order are everyone’s concerns,” Director Piggot said. “And the teams may encounter Lightshaft and Jaunt or elements of the ABB in their work. And it’s hardly proper to turn down a request for aid from another federal agency, anyway.”  
  
Chris nodded, and Kennick started talking again. As the briefing turned to what forces would be taking which parts of the city, Clockblocker raised his hand. Kennick paused in his speech and gave him a nod.  
  
“Yeah, quick question,” Dennis said, his voice electronically distorted by the full-face helmet he wore. “Will we be patrolling with the Empire 88, or just pretending that we don’t see the swastikas when they throw a bleeding grand-.”  
  
“That’s _enough_, Clockblocker,” Piggot said, her voice hard and flinty as she spoke over Dennis saying ‘mother at our feet’. “You are here to preform your sworn duties for the United States government. Not to offer snide commentary.” She ran her gaze over all of the Wards. Chris looked right back at her. “And that goes for _all_ of you, understand?”  
  
“I’ve got a question,” Shadow Stalker said, standing up.  
  
“Ask,” Piggot growled. “But _do_ remember that you’re on probation, Shadow Stalker, and I am _not_ in the mood for insubordination.”  
  
“Don’t worry, it’s not for you,” Sophia said, waving her hand dismissively, and a good deal of contempt in her tone, though not much more than normal. She looked at Kennick, who looked right back at her, his face hard. “After you throw the Asians and the Latinos out, are you going to try and put the blacks in the fields or the women i-“  
  
“That’s enough!” Piggot snapped, raising her voice. “You are _all_ fined a week’s pay for insubordination and _you_, Shadow Stalker, will report to my office later for further punishment.” Her cheeks were flushed a deep red, and Chris could see her chest rising and falling. “There is no room here for childish insolence. You are all soldiers, and I expect you to act as such.”  
  
Chris glanced around the room. There was a lot of crossed arms and muttering, and anyone who’s masks or helmets didn’t hide their eyes was glaring at the front of the room. Chris was as well. Oh yeah, he was going to look the _hell_ out of the district he was getting assigned to. They’d be shocked with how many scared people he ended up pulling out of their hidey holes.  
  
“Director Piggot, Miss Militia,” Carlos said, rising to his feet. He put his hands behind his back. “I don’t feel that I can, in good conscience, lead the Wards on this mission.”  
  
Wait, that was even better than sandbagging the job. And, well, since Chris knew he’d be getting support, it was a _lot_ easier to do it. Taking a stand against someone bigger than you was a lot easier with backup.  
  
“Ditto,” Chris said, even as Clockblocker and Vista rose to their feet as well. Their words overlapped each other, but the general meaning was clear.  
  
“You may think,” Kennick said, his voice tight and hard, “that you’re doing something heroic and brave by breaking your oaths to the federal government. But all you’re doing is playing into the hands of _murderers_ and criminals.” Chris could hear rage quivering in his voice.  
  
“Really?” Vista asked, her high-pitched, clear voice cutting through the rustle of people shifting in their seats. “I didn’t know that anyone had been charged with anything besides not being white.”  
  
Kennick drew himself up to his full height and stared down the twelve-year-old girl. Vista looked right back at him.  
  
“I strongly resent what you’re implying, girl,” Kennick said. “But I wasn’t referring to the illegals and the vagabonds we kept off the streets.” He lifted his gaze once more taking in the whole room. “I’m referring to the supervillains who let these scum loose on our city. Last night, either Lightshaft or Jaunt killed a janitor, Joshua Darling.”  
  
Chris felt his eyebrows rise. He hadn’t heard _anything_ about any deaths. Neither, it seemed, had any of the other Wards.  
  
“Yes, that’s right,” Kennick said. “For reasons only known to their twisted minds, they beat him to death, shot him in the mouth with a tongue and wrote ‘Snitch’ on his chest before leaving him in the maintenance building like a dog.” He was practically shaking with rage by now. “_That_ is the true face of the women you’re refusing to go and hunt down!”  
  
Chris looked to the side, and then to his other side. There was some muttering in the room, but nobody sat down or said anything. After a second, Aegis shook his head.  
  
“I’m sorry to hear about this man’s death,” Carlos said. “But his murder doesn’t change what we’re being asked to do. I’m still refusing to take part in this operation.”  
  
“And we’re all with him,” Chris said, nodding quickly and slapping Aegis on the shoulder.  
  
There was a wave of agreement from the rest of the Wards. The three adults at the front of the room looked at them with stony expressions on Piggot’s and Kennic’s faces. It was too hard to tell what Miss Militia was feeling behind her red, white and blue bandanna.  
  
“This is not up for debate, and you do not get to choose what orders you follow,” Piggot said, her voice as hard as an iron bar. “You have been told what to do, and now you will do them.”  
  
“With respect, ma’am,” Gallant said. And, the funny thing was, it actually sounded like there was some respect in his voice, “I’m not changing my answer. I won’t carry out these orders, and I won’t work with the IRA.”  
  
There was a wave of muttered agreement from the rest of the Wards. Vice Director Kennic had switched from watching them to watching Piggot. His expression had changed a bit, though Chris was a bit too far away to tell the exact mix of emotions on his face.  
  
“I am very disappointed in all of you,” Miss Militia said, her voice a mixture of sternness and sadness. “I had expected better from you.”

  
“Don’t coddle them,” Piggot snapped, glaring at Miss Militia before turning her gaze to a new target. “This is _not_ over,” Director Piggot said, no trace of sadness in her voice, only anger and contempt.

“Miss Militia and I will be discussing how to properly handle this insubordination, but _believe_ me,” she tried to fix every teen in the room with the same glare, “you have all made a _very_ stupid choice in defying both me and your government.” She stood up as tall as she could. “It will be a _very_ harsh punishment, and you will all regret this.” She looked at Shadow Stalker for a good five seconds, who just stared back, her expression completely hidden. “Some of you more than others.”  
  
Piggot and Kennic strode from the room, leaving Miss Militia at the front of the room, in front of the projector. She cast a black shadow on the blank white screen. She sighed, and Chris could see the American flag she used to hide her identity with puffing out.  
  
“Go to standby until told to stand down,” Miss Militia said. “And Aegis? We _will_ be thoroughly discussing this matter with you.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Carlos said, his voice firm and steady. “I’d expect nothing less.”  
  
Miss Militia turned on her heel and left as well. All of the Wards watched her go, none of them saying anything.  
  
Chris sighed and sat back as the final adult left the room. Well _shit_. He hoped he had made the right choice here. If a few minutes of thought, now that he had _time_ to think revealed something simple and easy he could have done instead, he was going to kick himself.  
  
What was done was done, he supposed. Now it was time to see what the future would hold.  
  
And there was only one way to find _that_ out. He’d just have to wait and see.  
  


* * *

  
  
And with that, Arc One of A Change In Priorities is done. It’s a popular series, and I know people will want more. However, I shared almost every idea I had for the story in this arc, and it will take time for me to decide what will happen in the next arc. So _don’t_ expect more in the next few months.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Realignment of Priorities](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20665799) by [LexiTheDoubleedge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LexiTheDoubleedge/pseuds/LexiTheDoubleedge)


End file.
